World Bank completes community housing project

Ridwan Max Sijabat, The Jakarta Post, Banda Aceh | Fri, 05/07/2010 9:42 AM

The World Bank has completed a US$85 million community-driven housing development project in Aceh, with the bank’s country director hailing it as a model for projects in disaster-hit regions such as Yogyakarta, West Sumatra and Haiti.

Joachim von Amsberg said the development was proven effective in people empowerment and transparency.

“The community-driven approach has granted rights to the people to take an active part in all housing development programs in the province in the past five years. Tsunami victims have a high sense of belonging and they are encouraged to deploy their own resources such as their human power, land and other materials to build houses they will occupy,” he said in his address in the handover ceremony on Thursday.

The World Bank, as trustee of the 16 Multi Donor Funds (MDF), developed more than 15,000 houses in 14 regencies and municipalities and 130 villages in the province in the past five years.

The bank, acting through the Community-based Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Projects (Rekompak) and with additional funds of Rp 26 billion from state budgets, has also constructed public infrastructure such as road networks, bridges and ground wells in the villages.

“Our success cannot be separated from the strategic partnership between the World Bank the central government, the provincial government and the liquidated Aceh-Nias Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency [BRR]. The important thing to underline is that the government leads the projects, the Acehnese community takes an active part and the World Bank fully supports the projects. Such a synergy has [great] significance for the disaster-affected community,” he said.

Aceh Governor Irwandi Yusuf thanked the World Bank on behalf of the Acehnese people. He said the bank had given serious attention and concern through its reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts.

The projects were part of 25 housing projects funded by the MDF, which includes the EU, New Zealand, the Asian Development Bank and the US. A total of 129,000 houses, hundreds of hospitals, mosques and government offices and dozens of ports and bridges were built following the December 2004 tsunami that killed at least 210,000 people, displaced hundreds of thousands of others and destroyed numerous public facilities and farmland in the province and in Nias in North Sumatra.