PCR Resources

Reconstruction after disaster poses a number of
challenges. Many problems and difficult issues can
be resolved by stakeholders talking to each other.
Communities themselves often have a wealth of
indigenous knowledge, accumulated over many
years through experience. A lot of that knowledge
can be very valuable in reconstruction. In addition,
any society has members who are known for their
specialist knowledge of certain issues, and who are
frequently consulted by community members, if
they have to resolve such issues. These could, for
instance, be local builders, teachers, administrators
or charity workers; seeking them out as sources
of information does pay off too. Within this
context, reconstruction practitioners bring their
own knowledge and experience. Combining all
these sources of knowledge usually does advance
reconstruction a long way.
However, sometimes a problem arises, that
none of the stakeholders have the knowledge to
resolve. In such cases, finding information from
outside the stakeholder group is important, and it
will often be up to the supporting agency to find it;
this tool helps practitioners do so, in a generic way.
Each reconstruction activity has different needs for
specific information; it is impossible to cover such
specific requirements in a small tool. What this tool
sets out to do, therefore, is to point practitioners
in the direction of potential sources of information.
In doing so, the tool considers mainly Anglophone
information resources; at the local level,
practitioners will often be able to complement
these with resources in other languages.