Transition Initiatives: Honduras Program Summary
November 2000
Six months after Hurricane Mitch hit
Honduras, more than 1,000 families
were still in temporary shelters in the capital city, Tegucigalpa. The long, barrack-like shelters, built by USAID in the hurricane's aftermath, were designed as a temporary solution, but permanent homes were not being rebuilt fast enough.
| 5/99 |
2/00 |
$4,735,461 |
$126,769 |
In response to this need, OTI designed a $3-million Macro-Shelter Housing Solutions Program with the International Organization for Migration that found permanent housing for 2,000 families displaced by the storm. The innovative program provided the displaced families with vouchers to apply toward the down payment on a new home. This motivated nongovernmental organizations with housing programs to make shelter for voucher recipients a priority. The NGOs cashed in the vouchers and used the funding to improve their projects and infrastructure.
The Santa Rosa Housing Site
In January 2000, USAID Administrator J. Brady Anderson visited the Santa Rosa housing site outside Tegucigalpa. The site was a prime example of OTI's work in Honduras. The beneficiaries worked together to purchase the land, the Red Cross constructed water and sanitation facilities, and the Honduran government paid for electrical connections to the site. OTI worked with USAID's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) to build an access road to the site. OTI also paid for the design, worked with the beneficiaries to evaluate contractor bids, helped with the contracting process, and handled legal problems. When a controversy arose about land ownership, OTI helped bring about a negotiated solution. The Santa Rosa community has repeatedly acknowledged that their housing project would never have taken place without OTI's assistance. |
OTI provided 15 to 20 NGOs with technical and financial support to help them devise permanent solutions for the hurricane victims. With OTI assistance, a coordinating body was set up for information sharing and to help match up suppliers and voucher holders. This approach not only benefited NGOs but also gave local people significant negotiating power. Equally important, it resulted in more efficient and lower-cost solutions. Other donors, including the Inter-American Development Bank, quickly saw the value of this approach and created similar, complementary models. Over the course of the year, OTI was asked to manage the complete housing package for the USAID Mission.
OTI also provided $2.8 million in start-up capital to support the design of the first infrastructure repair activities in the country. Hurricane Mitch had destroyed crucial farm-to-market rural access roads. OTI's bridges and roads program repaired critical roads that the government could not, enabling farmers to get their crops to market, replant with new seeds and equipment, and attract investment, which would not have happened without assurances that farmers could sell what they produced.
OTI's partners in Honduras included the USAID Mission and USAID Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, the International Organization of Migration, the Municipality of Tegucigalpa, Mercy Corps, Habitat for Humanity, the Honduran Red Cross, the Cooperative Housing Foundation, CARITAS, Adventist Development Relief Agency, the Institute for Education by Radio, Ven a Servir, Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos, the City of Madrid, Spanish International Cooperation, ECOVIDE, Cristo del Picacho, and others.
OTI left Honduras in February 2000 and handed off the management of its activities to the USAID Mission.
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