Gender Sensitive Guidelines on Implementing the Tsunami Housing Policy

The Tsunami Housing Policy states that cash grants are supposed to go to the owner of the previous land/house. In practice the cash allocations have been deposited into existing bank accounts which were used earlier to deposit tsunami assistance grants of Rupees 5000 (about $49). In most cases these bank accounts are in the name of the male head of the household. Although the banks were instructed to make these accounts joint accounts, often this did not happen. The District Secretaries or the relevant authorities should make sure that the housing cash grants go into bank accounts owned by the previous land/house owner, especially when the previous owner was the woman of the household, or go into joint accounts. (Sri Lanka)