The Swedish Rescue Services Agency has been engaged in the Tuzia area since the early 1990s. The work was initially commissioned by the UNHCR but its role was taken over in 1995 by the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida). The analysis given here is in part a discription of the process to improve the housing standard and in part an evaluation of an early stage of that process. Guidelines for the SRSA work have been codified in, what is called by Sida, an Intergrated Area Program (IAP), where a "help for self help" idea is applied at two lewels. First, the individual house owner is provided with building material, but he has to do the construction work himself. Then, on the village level, help is provided only for a limited number of houses - just enough to inspire the inhabitants to repair the rest of the houses themselves. The IAP idea seems to have found a qualified implementation agent in SRSA. The goal of the reconstruction efforts - to get people to return and develop their village - has been achieved in the villages where the agency has carried out reconstruction work. In spite of the positive overall picture we think that the results may have been achieved in part due to favourable circumstances. Our opinion is that if the SRSA is to be a leading reconstruction organisation it will be necessary to give more attention to the lessons learned each time and in the competence profile of its field representatives. The alternative is, as we see it, that the agency concentrates on been a technical specialist supporting other reconstruction organisations.