Empowering People After Natural Disasters: Lessons from the Post-Tsunami Legal Assistance, Governance, and Anticorruption Project in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Empowering people after a natural disaster by giving them access to their rights and entitlements allows them to reconstruct the legal foundation for their lives and livelihoods. The Asia and Pacific region is likely to see more natural disasters over the next 2–3 decades as a result of climate change. Countries in Asia and the Pacific will be in the best position to serve the needs of future potential victims of natural disasters if they understand past experiences of people’s needs after a natural disaster has hit, and if they consider innovative ways to help people reconstruct and fulfill all their needs and potential. ADB’s posttsunami legal assistance, governance, and anticorruption work under the Tsunami-Affected Areas Rebuilding Project in Sri Lanka,1 which has assisted about 35,000 people, provides such experience. It also served as the precedent for a similar governance intervention in Asian Development Bank (ADB) assistance to Pakistan after the 2005 Pakistan earthquake,2 which has assisted approximately another 27,000 people. Past experience also suggests that the issues raised here should be considered and addressed well before natural disasters hit.