Case Study: Post-Emergency Housing Finance for the Poor, Aceh, Indonesia
This case study illustrates how phasing of post-emergency interventions helps determine the appropriate time to introduce housing finance. The Development Innovations Group (DIG) applies a framework with different stages of post-disaster response and relevant interventions for shelter financing.
Three years after the Tsunami, the DIG sent a team to Aceh, Indonesia to determine the post-disaster phase it was in and assess if conditions allowed for the introduction of housing finance for the poor. The team discovered that conditions were not optimal, and that housing microfinance would not be an appropriate tool to address the housing needs of the poor.
The Aceh example presents the following policy implications for shelter finance interventions in a post-disaster scenario:
- Policymakers should have a long-term vision to establish an environment in which housing microfinance can be introduced;
- Policymakers should consider how the immediate response and phasing of development funding will feed into longer-term development goals;
- Introduction of a housing microfinance product could be detrimental to the development process if there are significant grants in the housing sector in a post-emergency environment.
