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Early Recovery
After any disaster—natural or manmade—humanitarian agencies rush in to provide nourishment, shelter, medicines—the very basics needed to save lives. Yet even as aid workers are distributing blankets and trucking in potable water, early recovery teams must be on hand to answer the inevitable question from communities in crisis: our lives are saved, but what are we to live for? A relatively new concept, early recovery addresses a critical gap in coverage between humanitarian relief and long-term recovery—between reliance and self-sufficiency. While working within a humanitarian setting, early recovery team workers have their eyes on the future—assessing damages to infrastructure, property, livelihoods, and societies. Their goal is to enable a smoother transition to long-term recovery—to restore livelihoods, government capacities, shelter—and offer hope to those who survived the crisis. UNDP work in early recovery has included: transitional housing, health services, education, employment recovery, and disaster risk reduction following the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan; a programme to empower internally displaced people and train the judiciary to address sexual and gender-based violence in Darfur; flood control efforts and rehabilitation of water reservoirs, livelihood opportunities, promotion of good governance and rule of law, and establishment of district and regional authorities to further reconciliation processes in Somalia. Watch a video about UNDP recovery initiatives featuring Jennifer Worrell, Leader of the Early Recovery Team, to learn more about how early recovery efforts provide hope for communities and help people not only recover from disasters, but also rebuild for a better future.
Early recovery in Bangladesh, 2008 Lessons Learned from Recovery in Lebanon, 2008 Rule of Law and Early Recovery, 2008 Pakistan’s Early Recovery Initiatives, 2007 Cluster Work Group on Early Recovery (CWGER) Newsletters Learn about early recovery efforts in countries around the work and find tools, news and resources on Early Recovery from the CWGER Newsletters (pdf).
Additional Resources Humanitarian Reform: Early Recovery Section |
Annual Report 2007Click here for text and full pdf Message on Gender |
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The importance of early recovery planning—a separate but parallel process within any humanitarian setting—is one of the key lessons of the new millennium. It is a lesson learned the hard way—from conflict zone to earthquake zone, tsunamis to flash floods. Yet often through such tragic detours we find roadmaps for the future, discovering insights and testing strategies that can help minimize human suffering in crisis zones.
Find out more about UNDP Early Recovery efforts in our 
