Introduction
1.1 Post-earthquake context: from emergency to reconstruction
In 2010, the situation was critical and it was time to work for a return to normalcy. As early as the week after the earthquake and then following the cholera epidemic that began in October, SOLIDARITÉS INTERNATIONAL focused its intervention on a WaSH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) emergency response covering the needs of 60,000 people spread over 52 sites in the Port-auPrince metropolis. It then adapted its intervention to the changing humanitarian context of the capital, accompanying the process of resettlement and/or return of the populations to their neighbourhoods of origin by integrating a neighbourhood dimension into the management of needs and not just a site approach.
This approach, which was intended to be holistic and sustainable, required for the community and local authorities to be strongly involved in order to allow a sustainable anchoring of sectoral programmes and an integrated response to needs (the logic of “lifesaving” in the first months of the emergency had implicated them very little).
SI thus launched a first pilot project of Support to the return of displaced populations to their neighbourhood of origin (programme ARQ in French) at the end of 2010 in two informal neighbourhoods, Bristout and Bobin (municipality of Petionville). A “neighbourhood profile” was carried out to obtain an initial knowledge of the area (monitoring and mapping of population movements, mapping of the boundaries of the neighbourhood, of the risks, land situation and inventory of houses, sectoral analysis...). Other activities implemented included a combination of recovery activities: Disaster Risk Reduction, Cash for Work for rubble clearance, EHA, distribution of nonfood items, etc.