Disaster-Risk Reduction through the Training of Masons and Public Information Campaigns

Although the training of civil engineers in earthquake-resistant construction techniques has made much progress over the past decades, its impact on the overall safety of the rapidly growing urban areas in poor countries is often limited. Huge parts of these cities are built by small-scale contractors and private owners with no knowledge of seismic construction techniques and little to no involvement of engineers. In order to address the objective of disaster-risk reduction effectively, the training of masons and awareness raising among the population are of the utmost importance. Based on experience in Pakistan in the aftermath of the 2005 earthquake, in Haiti, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation decided to create a Competence Centre for Reconstruction to achieve more disaster-resistant reconstruction through the training of masons and awareness building. This Haitian experience will be presented in detail in this chapter.