ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights the fact that there is no 'one size fits all' approach to post-disaster/conflict community engagement in effective reconstruction and social recovery. It begins by stressing that good practice must start with detailed situation analysis and people can only hope to depict underlying principles rather than uniform models and approaches. The chapter suggests that post-disaster or conflict reconstruction and recovery work must be highly context-sensitive, and this applies to different contexts within a single country as well as between different countries. It highlights many positive examples of where community engagement enhances the recovery processes, a number of the case study chapters indicate that too often it is the loudest voices, usually of the local elites, which are heard, while the needs of the more silent, perhaps the majority, go unheard or ignored.
