Projects

UN-Habitat-ADB Simeulue Housing Programme

New Houses with Water and Sanitation Completed by Five Communities in Simeulue
May 2009

Mr. Florian Steinberg (right), ADB Senior Urban Development Specialist received Appreciation Plague from Bupati Simeulue, Drs Darmili (left) on behalf of Simeulue local government to the support of ADB and UN-HABITAT.

Simeulue - Pak Salman and his wife proudly showed their completed house to the visiting guests. Salman is a member of Bakti Usaha 01 housing cluster in Situbuk village, where he is actively involved in the rebuilding process of new houses for their cluster. The 36 meter square house, painted in a fresh green colour, has a family space, two bedrooms and a bathroom. Outside is the tap for piped water and an impressive septic tank which treats waste water biologically and safely. "When we move into this new house, the children will have a room on their own and I will start planting trees in our backyard," Mrs. Salman excitedly told the guests.

About the Simeulue Settlements Support Programme

Pak Salman is one of the 459 beneficiary families assisted by the Simeulue Settlements Support Programme (S3P). This programme is a cooperation between the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and is part of the ADB financed Earthquake and Tsunami Emergency Support Project (ETESP). The programme is strongly community-based, mobilising the participation of communities in every stage of the reconstruction process. Communities supported the studies on environmental and social safeguards that were undertaken at the start. Once the programme was approved, UN-HABITAT signed community contracts with cluster groups of beneficiaries. Planning, land mapping, construction, water supply and sanitation were undertaken, guaranteeing integration and sustainability.

Pak Salman's family pose in their new house with Camat (Head of Sub-District) Simeulue Timur, ADB and UN-HABITAT Representatives.

Stakeholder Participation was Key to Success

Five villages participated: Batu-Batu, Busung, Kahad, Situbuk and Sua-Sua. The construction work started in June 2008 and is now completed. During the official hand-over ceremony on 28 April 2009, in the presence of the head of the district government (the "Bupati") of Simeulue, Mr. Srinivasa B. Popuri, the UN-HABITAT Programme Manager, conveyed his gratitude and appreciation for the support and the cooperation of all stakeholders who have been involved in the UN-HABITAT-ADB community rebuilding settlements programme.

"The precious experience and lessons from the process is that the communities themselves are actively involved in rebuilding their own houses. This is the philosophy that UN-HABITAT's "The People's Process", he said. "The community is grouped into clusters of five families, which take on the procurement of materials, the provision of labour, the reporting of expenses and the monitoring of the construction progress. Throughout the whole process UN-HABITAT team provided social and technical facilitation to support the programme."

Handing over of House Keys to Community in Situbuk village

Mr. Florian Steinberg, Senior Urban Development Specialist from ADB, concurred that "to build and reconstruct houses on an island like Simeulue is challenging: heavy rains affect the progress and the procurement of construction materials is difficult." He expressed satisfaction "to see that through commitment and hard work of all stakeholders including the community, the local government of Simeulue and the UN-HABITAT team, the assignment could be successfully completed."

Meanwhile Drs Darmili, the Bupati of Simeulue, thanked UN-HABITAT and the ADB for their cooperation and support to reconstruct community houses after the earthquake and tsunami of 2004. "Notwithstanding the devastation caused by the disaster, we are now witnessing development progress on the island of Simeulue. I am thankful that the support of donor organizations like ADB and UN-HABITAT made this possible. The local government will continue to implement development programmes in a variety of sectors so as to further advance Simeulue from a previously backward area to a prosperous district."

Over 1,000 Households Benefited from the Programme

Ibu Masdar is collecting water from her new water tap in Batu-Batu village. Water supply is part of community rebuilding housing programme of UN-HABITAT-ADB in Simeulue.

Overall, UN-HABITAT assisted a total of 1,186 households in nine villages on the island, in Simeulue Timur and Teluk Dalam sub-districts. First, it rebuilt 727 houses as part of the Aceh Nias Settlements Support Programme (ANSSP), which was implemented in cooperation with UNDP and funded by housing cooperations from the Netherlands, under the umbrella of AEDES, the Dutch association of public housing corporations. For the entire Aceh and Nias, UN-HABITAT completed 4,500 houses in six districts. This includes 486 houses on Nias which were also constructed through a UN-HABITAT - ADB cooperation program. The programme also gave policy support to the government and supported sector-wide coordination, monitoring and information management, as well as advocacy and public outreach.

The Asian Development Bank has tailored its assistance to the needs of many sectors in Aceh and Nias through ETESP. With funding reaching US$294.5 million, it covered recovery and reconstruction support in the sectors of agriculture, fisheries, irrigation, micro and small enterprise development, housing, water and sanitation, health, education, transport, power, spatial planning and environmental management.

For more information about The People's Process, please refer to UN-HABITAT's publication ANSSP Guidelines (9 Volumes), Training Films and Guidelines UN-HABITAT's People's Process in Aceh and Nias (Indonesia) 2005-2008) or website www.unhabitat-indonesia.org*. For more information about ETESP, please see http://www.adb.org/Projects/ETESP/default.asp