Housing and Resilience : Case Study from Cook Islands

The Pacific Islands is widely known as being highly vulnerable to climate change impacts. In addition to long-term impacts such as sea level rise, current impacts such as tropical cyclones wreak havoc and the housing sector is often most severely affected. There is therefore a critical need for assessing the resilience of housing in the region. In response to that need, an evaluation tool for assessing housing resilience was developed. The analytical framework of the tool consists of five main factors - Inputs, Output, Result, Impacts & Effects, and External Factors - and the tool was tested in the Cook Islands. The sustainability of these interventions, and indeed that of the islands facing severe resource constraints and rapid demographic and environmental change, posed serious questions. The study allowed confirming the importance of the evaluation tool in the global context of climate change and consequent widespread disaster occurrence, and the devastating impact on the housing sector. In that respect, while there are obvious implications for other Pacific islands, the findings of the study offer wider global lessons for the multiplicity of agencies engaged in housing reconstruction, disaster risk reduction and development.