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Photo by Erin Patrick, Women’s Refugee Commission. Makeshift Shelters, Haiti.
The shelter sector is typically responsible for overseeing the camp site selection and planning process, and for ensuring that shelter materials—usually wood poles, tarps, and rope—are provided to beneficiaries during the establishment of camps. In many regions, they also coordinate the composition and distribution of “non-food items,” such as cooking pots and buckets for carrying water. In emergency settings, firewood is often in direct competition with materials needed for shelter construction, such as timber. Without proper assessment by shelter workers of the wood resources available in and around a camp site, the construction of the camp itself can deplete much of the surrounding area’s firewood supply, forcing women to travel farther and farther away from the relative safety of the camp to find cooking fuel. Refugee camps are also extremely crowded—when shelters are so close together, open fires used for cooking are a huge risk factor for house fires, which can have devastating effects in camps constructed primarily out of wood, thatch and plastic.
Shelter Resources
Timber as a construction material in humanitarian operations
Tools/Manuals/Handbooks
Author: United Nations Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN/OCHA)
Date: March 2009
Synopsis: This handbook provides
technical information on selecting, specifying, procuring, using and
distributing timber as a material for the construction of small and medium
sized buildings, as part of humanitarian operations, including recognizing the
link and possible competition between timber used for construction and for
firewood. It is intended for engineers, program managers, logisticians and
others working in humanitarian programs involving construction.
UNHCR Handbook for Emergencies: Chapter 12—Site Selection,
Planning and Shelter
Tools/Manuals/Handbooks
Author: United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
Synopsis: This chapter is designed to
help humanitarian workers find suitable sites and shelter to accommodate
refugees in emergencies, taking into consideration environmental, sanitation
and gender concerns, as well as water supply, transportation infrastructure,
and fire prevention.
Sphere Humanitarian Guidelines and Minimum Standards:
Chapter 4--Minimum Standards in Shelter, Settlement and Non-Food Items
Guidelines/Standards
Author: The Sphere Project
Date: 2004
Synopsis: This chapter of the Sphere
Handbook is a practical expression of the principles and rights embodied in the
Sphere Humanitarian Charter, which is concerned with ensuring that the most
basic requirements for sustaining the lives and dignity of those affected by
calamity or conflict are met by the humanitarian system. The minimum standards
are broken down into shelter and settlement standards and non-food items
standards.
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