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.