Shelter Mission to Beira, Mozambique

In this article, we explain more about the Shelter program, their workshops, missions and other initiatives. Shelter is one of the employee programs funded by the Lovinklaan Foundation. It’s a partnership program between Arcadis and UN-Habitat aimed at a common goal: to improve the quality of life of citizens in rapidly growing cities around the world. Since 2010, an impressive number of more than 100 technical support missions have been completed in Asia, Africa and Middle and South America.

Cyclone Idai has devastated the coastal city of Beira, Mozambique. Most buildings and especiallly roofs have been destroyed, large areas were flooded, the coastal protection was damaged and the waste management was disrupted. On request of the Mayor of Beira (who previously attended the Shelter Academy in The Netherlands) UN-Habitat has asked the Shelter program to support the Beira Municipal Recovery and Resilient Plan, The work is done in a Task Force in which UN-Habitat cooperates with the Netherlands government and UNDP. The Shelter team consists of Gustavo Tanaka (Arcadis Brazil), Mike van Acoleyen (Arcadis Belgium), Martijn Onderwater, Pascal Weidema, Bas Agerbeek and Kees de Vries (Arcadis Netherlands), and Bert Smolders (Shelter program manager).

Several proposals for Building Back Better projects have been developed by the team, focussing on coastal protection, drainage and flood management, sanitation, and solid waste management. A combination of protective groynes and nature-based solutions will ensure coastal safety in future. With support of international donors the drainage and sewage systems can be improved and extended, and a sanitary landfill and improved waste collection will ensure that young mothers do not have to carry their babies through piles of waste anymore to look for something valuable, and that people will no longer be exposed to the dioxin coming from the dumpsite fires.

The team is working hard to support the recovery of Beira as soon as possible. This post disaster mission for Beira is the largest Shelter support mission ever. The success of the work of the Shelter team was proven in the international donor conference for Beira where 200 million US dollar was pledged to turn the project proposals into reality!

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