Seven Pillars for Post-War Reconstruction

On reviewing the history of post-war reconstruction it is difficult to identify successful cases of reconstruction. This is not to deny the enormous efforts in post-war reconstruction in past decades and the increasing development of best practice. The fact remains though that post-war reconstruction repeatedly makes the same mistakes. The vital constituency of local people are often written out of the equation. A technical reductionism means that reconstruction issues are often merely regarded as a rebuilding task rather than a wider issue deserving of integration with economic and societal development. The same ‘we can fix-it’ attitude also reinforces a prevailing short-termism in which only limited attention is devoted to each post-war area.