Storm Resilient Housing

Customized design and customized financing

The Program

2010 – 2019

Geographic scope: Da Nang and Quang Tri, Vietnam

Partners: Da Nang Women’s Union (DNWU), Development Workshop France (DWF); Central Vietnam Architecture Consultancy (CVAC); Da Nang Department of Foreign Affairs (DOFA), Quang Tri Women’s Union (QTWU)

Funders: The Rockefeller Foundation, Asian Development Bank (ADB), Nordic Development Fund (NDF)

Monitoring, Evaluation + Learning (MEL)

Program Design + Implementation

Resilience Tools + Frameworks

Applied Research

Technical Consultancies

Overview

A feasibility study in 2009 demonstrated high demand funding for low-cost storm-resilient housing among low-income groups in the city. In response, ISET and local partners developed the Storm Resistant Housing for a Resilient Da Nang City project, funded by the Rockefeller ACCCRN program. The project established a revolving loan fund for strengthening the storm resilience of existing homes or constructing new storm resistant houses for poor, near-poor and female-headed households. This model was later replicated in Quang Tri province under the same ACCCRN program.

ISET conducted a companion study, funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), to provide recommendations for disaster resilient housing construction and credit schemes for urban poor households, and a study funded by the Nordic Development Fund (NDF) to assess segments of the low-income housing market in Da Nang. The NDF also supported storm-resilient house construction/retrofitting through the testing of incentive resilient housing packages (including: loan only, loan plus grant, and grant only).

What we delivered

Across the various programs and funding sources, ISET’s key focus was on understanding the circumstances and needs of vulnerable households and designing/adapting support to meet their needs, through both a customized resilient housing design (integrating five key elements of resilient housing) and a customized grant/loan package (grant/loan combination with varying size, loan term, and repayment schedules).

ISET provided technical support and training to build the knowledge and capacity of local partners, local builders, and beneficiary households in climate change, urban disaster risk reduction (DRR), credit/financial management, and storm-resistant housing design and construction techniques. The learning-by-doing capacity building approach adopted for this project took time and effort, but helped ensure project long-term sustainability.

Key outcomes/results

Built/ retrofitted more than 565 houses for storm resilience using customized designs based on household needs and funded via either a grant or loan from the project. The technical robustness of the housing designs was tested by Typhoon Nari in Da Nang in 2013, which left all 244 newly constructed/retrofitted houses of the project at the time undamaged.
Strong credit management capacity of the Women’s Unions helped to ensure the continuation of the projects beyond traditional project timelines by maintaining the repayment rate of the revolving loan fund at 100%.
Scaling and replication of the project’s model has benefited at least 4,000 households under a related UNDP program, and 88 households from other sources mobilized by the Da Nang Women’s Union.
Recognition and strong support by the Da Nang City Government, through a recommendation to all city departments and organizations to apply resilient housing models in all existing and future housing programs.