Abstract

Over the past few years, the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have helped communities remarkably to respond to and recover from the impact of natural hazards like floods in Pakistan. Compared to the previous natural disasters, 2010 floods were the most devastating and the challenges through relief aid were more significant for the affected families and communities. The purpose of this paper is to gather lesson learned and perception at the community level of the NGOs extended shelter assistance in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. In this regard face-to-face questionnaire was used with 406 respondents (both shelter recipients and non-recipients) for two modules of the questionnaire whilst the 3rd module of the questionnaire was only administered with the shelter-recipients households (HHs) (n=203), using a parallel sampling approach. Overall, the study findings draw attention towards further improvement so that the non-recipients HHs may see and value the assistance as socially balance and integrated. Evidence from this study shows that around 88% of the shelter-recipients expressed their agreement while on the other hand less than one-third of the non-shelter-recipients agreed that the allocation to the recipient’s HHs was based on prioritization of needs and  89% of the shelter-recipient respondents agreed that the given shelters have met their HH accommodation needs. However, among these only 34% fully agreed that it met their accommodation needs adequately whilst 55% only agreed partially however, less than half of them (45%) mentioned should have a boundary wall. Moreover, around one-fifth (20%) mentioned to have at least two rooms and toilets. This paper also offers potential actions for State owned and humanitarian agencies to support long-term sustainability in their relief activities and an often-overlooked element of the disaster recovery cycle. NGOs may be interested in using this document to inform their decision makers about changes to disaster relief policies that better define the components of and organizational roles and responsibilities in long-term recovery to the disaster affected people.

Key words: Shelter Assistance, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Flooding, Natural Disaster, NGOs. Pakistan.