Managing for innovation in large and complex recovery programmes: Tsunami lessons from Sri Lanka

The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami reconstruction has been one of the best-funded recovery operations ever. However, wavering public policy, weak coordination, management and competence of actors, perturbed markets, a civil war and the sheer size of the operation have led to less than desirable outcomes in the Sri Lankan context. Within a major international non-governmental organisation, this paper finds that recovery programmes and projects require distinct approaches, resources and competence. Programmes are seen to be critical in nature and should enable knowledge transfer, while projects need to strive for output efficiency.