Understanding Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience in Urban Haiti

This collaborative project between CRS Haiti and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative supports individuals in the urban Haitian communities of Solino and Tesso in becoming resilient to recurring shocks and disasters. This research supports CRS in operationalizing a true “Neighborhood Approach” for reducing urban disaster risk in Solino and Tesso by empowering communities to take a leading role in their risk mitigation measures now and in the future. The primary objective of this research was to determine if baseline social cohesion in the communities of Solino and Tesso is associated with increased community participation and/or improved resilience at the beginning and end of the study period. A secondary objective was to understand how social cohesion impacts resilience and how various household and community features impact both social cohesion and resilience.

Results of this study indicate that social cohesion is a very strong predictor of community resilience. Further, there is a difference in mean social cohesion and mean resilience between the two communities, with Tesso having greater social cohesion but less resilience than Solino. Additionally, certain demographic variables, some of which vary by community, are more strongly associated with both social cohesion and resilience, indicating that demographic makeup of communities can have a large influence on community resilience and social cohesion.

The findings of this research suggest that by improving social cohesion in these neighborhoods, there will be a resulting increase in community resilience as well. Programs aimed at reducing disaster risk should understand the role that social cohesion and demographics of these communities play in building resilience