World Wildlife Fund

Mother and child living in an internally displaced person's camp in Sri Lanka.
© WWF-Canon/Yoshi Shimizu

WWF is working directly with humanitarian organizations and governments to advise them on better practices for rebuilding communities impacted by disaster. The goal of our Humanitarian Partnerships Program is to ensure that recovery and reconstruction efforts include environmentally sustainable considerations. To reduce risk and vulnerability and achieve long-lasting results for affected communities, the recovery and reconstruction process must be comprehensive and include a 'design through implementation' approach to ensure restoration of livelihoods, protection of natural resources, and strengthening of communities against future disasters.

The Humanitarian Partnerships Program was borne out of collaboration with the American Red Cross to ensure sustainable reconstruction in countries ravaged by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami including Sri Lanka, Thailand, India, the Maldives and Indonesia.  Since then, the program has worked on the Philippines oil spill in 2006, Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh in 2008, Cyclone Jokwe in Mozambique in 2008, and the Sichuan Province earthquake in China in May 2008.

• WWF's Green Reconstruction Policy Guidelines
• WWF and American Red Cross Partnership for Tsunami Recovery