UK Shelter Forum 18 took place on Friday the 13th of May 2016 and was hosted by CARE and the Institution of Structural Engineers.

UKSF18 Panel. From left to right: Wendy Fenton, ODI HPG; Dominic Courage, Save the Children; Fergus McBean, humanitarian preparedness advisor; Prof. Jonathan Wolff, UCL.

The theme of this forum was ‘Risk and Responsibility’:

Humanitarian shelter projects and practitioners often place significant emphasis on stronger, ‘better’ buildings, aiming to reduce the risk of those building collapsing in future events. Associated with this is a range of standards and expectations, and often serious concerns about liability for unsafe buildings. 

This forum aims to explore the risks faced by vulnerable populations and how those risks affect their choices and priorities – and what ‘better’ means to them. It will ask where responsibility for minimising these risks lies and to question whether all these risks, choices & priorities are adequately reflected in humanitarian shelter programmes and the shelters or buildings that result. 

The agenda for the event was:

UKSF18 Agenda

Presentations from UK Shelter Forum 18 are below. Notes on the discussions will be added here in due course.

Updates & announcements

• UKSF18 IOM Arup Pakistan Research Update by Tim White, Arup International Development
• UKSF18 India National Shelter Conference update by Tom Newby on behalf of the India Shelter Forum
• UKSF18 Interaction SSWG Update by Tom Newby on behalf of Mohamed Hilmi, Interaction

Talks session 1

• UKSF18 Self-recovery systematic review by Beth Parker and Victoria Maynard
• UKSF18 Yolanda Shelter Response Outcome Assessment – Vincent Annoni, REACH, Impact Initiatives
• UKSF18 Case studies from Assam & Odisha – Sneha Krishnan
• UKSF18 Post-disaster shelter in India by Tom Newby, CARE International

Talks session 2

Talks on construction:

• UKSF18 Construction standards & tools – Andrew Powell, Save the Children
• UKSF18 Safe sustainable structures in Kibera by Ian Ashcroft, Arup/EWB-UK/KDI

Talks on research:

• UKSF18 Shelter Projects by Alberto Piccioli & Joseph Ashcroft, IOM. There is currently a call for abstracts for the forthcoming Shelter Projects 2015-16 publication. You can submit abstracts using this form. The deadline is the end of May.
• UKSF18 Research on rental housing & hosting programmes – Alex Miller, Oxford Brookes CENDEP
• UKSF18 Emergency Energy – Peter Thomas, Centre for Sustainable Development/EWB-UK/CARE

Talks session 3

• UKSF18 Integrated Programming by Jamie Richardson, CRS
• UKSF18 Gender in Shelter – Amelia Rule, CARE International

The UK Shelter Forum 17 was hosted by British Red Cross aand Save the Children on 13th November 2015. 

The focus of the day was ‘cash and markets for shelter’ but also included updates from around the world.

Venue: Barbican Centre, Frobisher Rooms 4-6, Silk Street, London, EC2Y 8DS