Between March 2007 and Februry 2008 I spent 9 months working on 2004 Asian Tsunami recovery projects in the Rebublic of Maldives. I was working for RedR Australia, and seconded to the Government of Maldives in the Housing and Infrastructure Redevelopment Unit (HIRU). The role was funded by AusAID.

71 houses at Dhaalu Kudahuvadhoo were handed over to the community on 9 August 2007. The contractor Alia Construction Ltd, was on time, which is a significant achievement in the Maldives.

The whole team ended up working amazingly well together, which was really satisfying. The guys from Alia were very adamant that it was my prioritisation of night-fishing trips that kept the project moving! It was a real pleasure working on a project where the team is friends and is having a good laugh - in a mix of Dhivehi, English, Hindi, Tamil and 'Irish'

The houses were mainly funded by the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, which is thankfully shortened to the IFRC.   The Government of the Maldives also funded twelve houses.

The houses have three bedrooms and two bathrooms; with electric fans, lighting and pumped water.   They are constructed from reinforced concrete and masonry brickwork with steel roofing, timber ceilings, tiled floors, and are painted inside and out.   So they are rather substantial.

All materials for the houses are imported. Cement, sand and aggregate comes from India in plastic sacks; timber from Malaysia - read Indonesian rainforest'; plastic fittings and fixtures from the factories of China. This obviously raises many questions on the sustainability of the reconstruction.

Another confusing aspect of the project was that the labour force (all imported from Bangladesh and India) generally lives in cramped and basic conditions, often worse that the camps for the displaced people, while constructing the houses for the Maldivian beneficiaries. It's a complicated issue, tied into the massive amount funding that is tagged to tsunami work and the overall development aspirations of the Maldives.

This project especially really opened my eyes to the questions of value that need to be considered in development and disaster reconstruction work, and I'm looking forward to being more involved in the strategic and planning phase of this type of project in the future.

Most of the people that have moved to Kudahuvadhoo from a nearby island called Gamendhoo.   It was totally abandoned after the tsunami in favour of consolidating the atoll population over rebuilding.   Thus it is now a grown over version of how it was after the tsunami.

Our HIRU team was in an interesting position. Our objective was to assist the GOM by managing international relief agency funded recovery projects following the 2004 Tsunami, however during my time in the Maldives we were becoming increasing relied on to assist with other related housing and infrastructure projects. This was a natural enough evolution, but meant that our temporary project management unit was becoming increasingly important to implementing projects successfully. This is a clear risk, as when the AusAID funding ceases, there will be a large capability gap left.

This is a consistent issue for the GOM with a small population base, a short history of tackling large projects of national importance, and little tertiary training in the Maldives. So I initiated a process to look at options for phasing in a new locally staffed team to take over HIRU, and to phase out the AusAID funding. I consulted individually with various ministries involved in national infrastructure projects, and ran a workshop in October 2007 to debate the cosistent issues raised in structuring, funding and resourcing a new local team.

The HIRU Team at the workshop in 2007 - Solih, John, Andrew, me, Jeremy. Brett is missing

As a result of the workshop conclusions I was asked to return to the Maldives in January 2008 to assist the Ministry of Planning and National Development (MPND) with developing a plan for coordinating the planning and implementation of future national infrastructure projects. This initiative was sponsored by the Minister of Planning and National Development, and I was able to complete and present the draft National Infrastrucutre Projects Implementation Plan within the 4 weeks at my diposal.

This plan will serve as the foundation for establishing a new coordination team to replace HIRU for managing the construction phase of infrastructure projects, as well as a new coordination team within MPND to manage the project planning, design and funding phase. It is also designed to assist internional donors in targeting funding to assist with skills capacity building in the Maldives relating to national infrastructure development.

Again, we had a good team of local contractors and consultants. It took some philosophical discussions, pulling, pushing, harassing, complimenting, nagging and coaching; but again we got the project open on time and within a tight and locked budget. I’m still friends with the contractor guys, so it all ended up happily ever after.

The opening ceremony was combined with the HPSN’s 31st birthday party.

The ribbon is being cut by a representative of the Bahrain Red Crescent who funded the project.

“Wow, look at this scaffold! Do you think that it’s safe?”

“I'm not sure. Shall we give it a try…?”

This a project that I prepared the design for and tendered. It then stalled for 6 months due to government funding problems. It was a nice change from the other projects to be surveying the island and giving a presentation to the community on the proposed house designs.

The good news is that the project finally started in January 2008 with the original contractor that I had selected.

Amazingly TVNZ did a small piece on the Maldives a while back that features briefly my Thulusdhoo houses! It's not the world's most inspiring piece of journalism - view here.