Build Back Better
"Build Back Better" was firstly defined and used officially in the UN Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, which was agreed at the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction 14-18 MARCH 2015,which was held in Sendai Japan, and this document was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 3 June 2015.
During the negotiation period for Sendai Framework, concept of the "Build Back Better" was proposed from Japanese Delegation. Japanese delegation proposed as a holistic concept as follows.
"The principle of “Build Back Better” concept is generally understood use disaster as a trigger to create more resilient nations and societies than before through the implementation of well-balanced disaster risk reduction measures, including physical restoration of infrastructure, revitalization of livelihood and economy/industry, and the restoration of local culture and environment."
This holistic concept was fully agreed among the negotiation delegates of each states and embedded to the Sendai Framework as one of the most important concept.
This concept was written in "Disaster Risk Reduction for Economic Growth and Livelihood, Investing in Resilience and Development" Edited by Ian Davis, Kae Yanagisawa and Kristalina Georgieva, in Chapter 7 "Recovery and reconstruction An opportunity for sustainable growth through “build back better” by Ryo Matsumaru and Kimio Takeya, which was published June 2015 by Routledge. Pre-printing abstract proceeding was delivered for UN Sendai meeting and concept was proposed for the UN document based on this Book Chapter 7 by the Japanese government delegation.
Concept of "Build Back Better" is common sense who involved in the recovery process from natural disaster, but not clearly defined as a holistic concept before this book.
During the reconstruction from the earthquake of Central Java March 2006, Japan International Cooperation Agency Reconstruction team used this concept and supported to recover houses by the earthquake resistant engineering with subsidiaries delivering system and achieved more than 100,000 strengthened houses within 2 years together under the leadership with Java Special Province.
After Mega disaster happened, International donors cooperate and make report named Post Disaster Needs Assessment, PDNA. In the PDNA of the Tropical Storm Ondoy and Typhoon Pepeng 2009 in Philippines, Kimio Takeya who was involved in this PDAM team from Asian Development Bank strongly proposed to use Build Back Better concept for recovery, so that the wording and concept of build back better was used firstly in Philippines government document. Build Back Better concept was also clearly written in the top page of Philippine government reconstruction policy document "Reconstruction Assistance on Yolanda" 16 Dec. 2013 as a catch phrase, by the strong conceptual support from Japan International Cooperation Agency.
After Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 was finalized, the indicators for check the achievement were defined. By the definition of these indicators, the terminology of "Build Back Better" were defined like, "The use of the recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction phases after a disaster to increase the resilience of nations and communities through integrating disaster risk reduction measures into the restoration of physical infrastructure and societal systems, and into the revitalization of livelihoods, economies and the environment. Annotation: The term “societal” will not be interpreted as a political system of any country." http://web.archive.org/web/20210525133420/https://www.preventionweb.net/terminology/view/51750
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