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casey2 3 days ago

We don't need a house right now, we need food, scrap it and sell it.

Some years later: Alright now that food security has improved lets buy a house. Sorry most construction companies got put out of business by Humanitarian Builder Inc. and they just closed shop cos funding ran out. Contractors aren't building permanent businesses.

manarth 3 days ago | parent [-]

If the recipients could only afford a traditional mud + thatch home, the contractors building work was new additional demand, rather than competition against existing builders.

Even when first-world funding dries up, knowledge of the design, its features and benefits will remain. It's also cheaper than the alternative single-storey concrete home design, so perhaps generating new construction demand from people who couldn't quite afford the more expensive single-storey stone house but can afford this new design.

It's certainly an eye-opening unusual project, but I think it's a net gain for the region, even without a sustained/permanent first-world benefactor.

graemep 3 days ago | parent [-]

You would almost certainly have got a bigger next gain for the same cost if you gave the same people the money used to build the house.

mothballed 3 days ago | parent [-]

7x GDP to an unbanked villager? It would be stolen / "shared" post haste.