In Depth
Shelter

Shelter

When emergencies strike, CARE works to meet people’s basic shelter needs: protection from the elements, security and a base for their livelihoods. CARE’s approach to shelter creates an enabling environment to mobilise the skills, experience, capacities and resources of affected populations so that they are supported as active agents of their own change.

Our 5 principles of shelter are:

  1. The affected population is the first responder and the most important stakeholder
  2. Shelter responses are always context specific
  3. Shelter programmes should be holistic and integrated
  4. There is a multitude of options for the delivery of shelter programmes
  5. A strong focus on the needs of women and girls

CARE shelter experts currently form part of the Self-recovery from Humanitarian Crisis research team – an interdisciplinary research project led by the Centre for Development and Emergency Practice (CENDEP), Oxford Brookes University, in collaboration with CARE International UK. Other project partners include Catholic Relief Services (CRS), CRAterre, the Global Shelter Cluster, Habitat for Humanity, Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and the British Geological Survey (BGS).

The project focuses on understanding and supporting people’s own choices and efforts to rebuild and self-recover following disasters. The overall aim of the project is to better understand the self-recovery process to inform humanitarian shelter practice, ensuring construction of safer, healthier homes.

CARE also co-chair the Promoting Safer Building Working Group of the Global Shelter Cluster with CRAterre.

Read more

Working towards healthier homes – report from a multi-sectoral shelter and health learning day that explored connections between housing and health in order to build back healthier, as well as safer, after humanitarian crises.

Addressing housing, land and property (HLP) rights challenges – recent HLP profiles for Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey by Hogan Lovells lawyers for CARE International to support shelter practitioners in delivering emergency shelter responses.

Why we must work with refugees from Myanmar on mid-term shelter in the Bangladesh refugee camps – James Morgan, Shelter Advisor, considers the challenges of shifting from short-term emergency response to longer-term support and ensuring families and communities are at the centre of the process

What is self-recovery? – The challenge for humanitarian agencies – reflecting on a study after Typhoon Haiyan, which hit the Philippines in late 2013, Tom Newby, formerly Head of Humanitarian for CARE International UK, asks what we mean by self-recovery, and what does support to self-recovery look like?

The case for self-recovery – article in Forced Migration Review by CARE’s self-recovery research team on the sector’s development of effective and appropriate approaches to supporting the practice of self-recovery for affected people

Self-recovery in Nepal: Reflecting with practitioners – blog by the self-recovery team about a roundtable discussion held in the Dhading District of Nepal with local practitioners, academics, policymakers and affected communities to reflect on the self-recovery programmes in the area since the devastating earthquakes in 2015.

Blogs See all

What does Women’s Economic Justice mean to you? An interview with Sidonie Adjiwa
As CARE gets ready to launch its new Women’s Economic Justice strategy, we’re sharing some diverse perspectives on why women’s economic justice matters and what’s needed to achieve it. As…
What does Women’s Economic Justice mean to you? An interview with Shanti Uprety
As CARE gets ready to launch its new Women’s Economic Justice strategy, we’re sharing some diverse perspectives on why women’s economic justice matters and what’s needed to achieve it. Shanti…
What does Women’s Economic Justice mean to you? An interview with Linda Scott
As CARE gets ready to launch its new Women’s Economic Justice strategy, we’re sharing some diverse perspectives on why women’s economic justice matters and what’s needed to achieve it. Linda…
Five principles for powerful partnerships: where profit meets social impact
A catalytic collaboration in Vietnam is stimulating business growth for women entrepreneurs by challenging misconceptions and improving access to finance, networks and critical support services. Here we share five key…

Publications See all

Women on the Move Global Report 2021: Women's Collective Voice
Women on the Move (WOM) is a CARE regional strategy to mobilize existing savings groups (previously referred to as Village Savings & Loan Associations, or VSLA) in West Africa to…
Partnership in CARE
CARE's Partnership Paper provides a unified CARE International definition of partnership and proposes an overarching framework and recommendations to enable CARE to partner with new and diverse organisations in new and diverse…
Generation Equality Forum: CARE commitments
As a leader in the Generation Equality Forum (GEF), CARE is making bold commitments to invest $100 million in supporting 10 million women and girls as leaders through savings and solidarity…
International Development Committee Inquiry into the progress the Government has made at putting climate change at the centre of aid policy: Written evidence by CARE International UK
CARE International UK’s submission to the International Development Committee Inquiry argues that, in order to deliver on its commitments to increase climate finance, ensure 50% is directed for adaptation, and…

You might also be interested in

Forced Migration Review - journal issue on 'Shelter in displacement'

Resilient Urbanism - a collaborative blog that seeks to explore a wide spectrum of topics related to what makes resilience in urban contexts unique

Gender-based violence (GBV) in shelter programming - an overview of the work of the Global Shelter Cluster working group (including CARE) that aims to provide tools to help shelter actors to mainstream GBV risk mitigation

Online shelter training course - a free 90 minute course developed by the Global Shelter Cluster targeted towards those working in humanitarian settings but useful for anyone interested in this area

Resources and links 

Shelter self-recovery – read more about the action research programme that aims to achieve safer, healthier and more resilient reconstruction of homes after crises

Promoting Safer Building information page on the Global Shelter Cluster website

Self-recovery from disasters: an interdisciplinary perspective – a report which investigated how disaster-affected households in Nepal and the Philippines rebuild their homes in situations where little or no support is available from humanitarian agencies

Stories of recovery: CARE Philippines post Haiyan/Yolanda shelter response – a CARE report evaluating the shelter response which used a self-recovery approach, providing almost 16,000 families with assistance

CRAterre research group – share knowledge of best practices in earthen architecture, including human settlements, housing and improving the living conditions of societies

Shelter Forum – shelter community of practice sharing knowledge from around the world about humanitarian shelter and settlements, including presentations from CARE shelter teams