Description of humanitarian shelter and settlements sector activities

When natural disasters or complex emergencies result in housing damage or destruction and population displacement, people typically desire to return rapidly to their communities to rebuild or repair their homes. Unfortunately, this return to normalcy cannot be achieved immediately and often takes months, if not years, particularly when people are displaced far from their communities. In the interim, humanitarian shelter and settlements (S&S) assistance can provide immediate relief while also contributing to recovery, thereby fulfilling USAID/OFDA’s mandate of saving lives, alleviating human suffering, and reducing the social and economic impact of humanitarian emergencies.

The objective of humanitarian S&S assistance is to ensure access to safe and appropriate living spaces in neighborhoods where affected households can resume critical social and livelihoods activities. S&S assistance facilitates a process of sheltering and associated neighborhood and community interventions—including provision of health and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services and disaster risk reduction (DRR) activities—that focus on immediately reducing economic, social, and physical vulnerabilities of disaster-affected households while simultaneously laying the foundation for longer-term recovery. Humanitarian shelter S&S assistance addresses the health, livelihood, privacy, security, and WASH needs of affected populations in a comprehensive and integrated manner and may even evolve to meet permanent housing and community solutions.