Guidance for Recovery in Protracted Crisis

How to address environmental concerns in recovery from protracted crisis

• In protracted crises, it is often difficult to clearly distinguish between the end of the crises and the beginning of the recovery phase. Therefore, relief and recovery efforts might might be parallel, ongoing activities.
  • The environmental burden can, therefore, significantly increase when recovery efforts add to relief activities.
    • During early recovery, predict which natural resources are likely to be in high demand and prepare to meet those needs in the most sustainable manner possible to ensure that these resources will be available for future demands as well.
    • Involve natural resource management experts and local environmental actors to ensure a sustainable use of natural resources.
      • The sustainable management of natural resources relies on the inclusion of a wide range of stakeholders to be effective. Environmental, humanitarian, development, national and local actors as well as communities must come together to ensure good stewardship of natural resources and improve affected people’s quality of life.
    • Prepare exit strategies for unavoidable unsustainable practices and transition as soon as possible to avoid creating new sources of vulnerability in the short and long term.
• During and after protracted crisis, natural resources such as oil, gas and timber, are often the only income generating resource for the affected government.
  • How exactly these resources are used significantly influences the course and success of Peacebuilding efforts in a protracted crises.
    • As conflict over distribution and exploitation of natural resources are often a fundamental part of the existing conflict, it is vital for humanitarian and environmental actors not to reinforce such tensions with their project activities.
    • Therefore, make sure to include context and conflict specific considerations into program planning and implementation of recovery efforts.
      • For example, shelter activities should ideally not rely on scarce natural resources such as timber, in case access to, and conflict over, it has been part of the conflict.
• Humanitarian and environmental actors engaged in the recovery phase should rather encourage the responsible, equitable and sustainable use of those resources and the revenues they generate¹ throughout the projects they are engaged in.
• For further expertise on the conflict-environment nexus, consult the Environmental Cooperation for Peacebuilding programme of UN Environment, that provides technical, environmental sensitive expertise for conflict transformation efforts RESOURCE
• When designing environmental interventions, such as sustainable settlements, consider how best to integrate with regional and local socioeconomic infrastructure and ecosystem processes through:
  • Land use and infrastructure: Plan to identify and organize the preferred land uses through the allocation and zoning of land for specific uses based on regulation and intensity of use, ensuring environmental aspects are taken into account.
  • Activity and Site Planning: locate activities (e.g. waste sorting, energy installations) and buildings along with physical infrastructures in such a way as to minimize adverse impacts on the surrounding environment and ecosystems.
• To increase sustainability and support longer-term development, recovery and reconstruction efforts should aim to:
  • Promote the sustainable use of renewable natural resources as building materials.
  • Reintroduce those traditional methods of reconstruction that are more environmentally sustainable that modern approaches.
  • Reuse or recycle disaster debris for reconstruction (see the Disaster Waste Management Guidelines for specific guidance).
  • Manage waste responsibly and support the development of disaster waste management systems to prevent future pollution and environmental issues associated with waste.
  • Conserve water and use sustainable resources only.
  • Develop governance capacity to sustainably manage natural resources.
  • Utilize technological innovations that are applicable to the local context.
• Engage with ecosystem restoration where possible (see here for specific guidance).
  • Ecosystem-based approaches to reduce disaster risk are especially relevant in the context of disaster recovery (see IUCN’s resources for detailed guidance).
  • Restoring the functions of ecosystems helps to reduce disaster risk, ensure food security and energy efficiency, restore livelihoods, and provide clean air as well as water.
  • The prioritization of ecosystems to restore can be based on the expected benefits in terms of livelihood restoration,
  • E.g. flood or landslide risk reduction
• Please see http://envirodm.org/green-recovery for a wealth of information on green recovery.
  • WWF’s Green Recovery and Reconstruction Tool (GRRT) is an excellent toolkit with the practical information and strategies necessary to improve project outcomes for the affected population, build back communities that are more environmentally sustainable, and reduce risk and vulnerability to future disasters.