Indeed, this concept has been in the disaster risk management literature many years ago and not justly in research papers. More accurate concept is not to "build back better" used for example recently in the 3WCDRR in Sendai but "to avoid the reconstruction of the vulnerability that existed before the event (not to rebuild the vulnerability)" or "the reconstruction as an oportinuty with transformation" (it is not only a physical concept). These conceptual or prescriptive proposals have been explicitly used in 1990s in Colombia and by La RED (network of social studies in Disaster Prevention of Latin America) after the earthquakes of 1994 (in Paez or Tierradentro) and of 1999 (in Quindio or coffee-growing area). Based on these approaches the Inter-American Development Bank, IDB, included that concept explicitly in its Action Plan and Policy of Disaster Risk Management in the decade of 2000 (they were issued in the middle of the decade). The government of Colombia after the floods of 2010-2011 (due to La Niña ENSO disaster) explicitly used this approach through the Adaptation Fund for the recovery "with transformation avoinding the vulnerability reconstruction". This literature is in Spanish on exception the documentation of the IDB that is in Spanish and English as well.   

Despite becoming a new post-disaster slogan (Boano & García, 2011) while others seen as an opportunity (Ophiyandri et al., 2013), ‘build back better’ has led to implementing structural design improvements to achieve efficiency and effectiveness in the rebuilding process (Mannakkara & Wilkinson, 2013) and should be referred as ‘build back better to withstand future disasters’.

Recommended further reading:

Kennedy, J., Ashmore, J., Babister, E., & Kelman, I. (2008). The Meaning of “Build Back Better”: Evidence From Post-Tsunami Aceh and Sri Lanka. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 16(1), 24–36.

Mannakkara, S., & Wilkinson, S. (2013). Build Back Better principles for post-disaster structural improvements. Structural Survey, 31(4), 314–327.

Boano, C., & García, M. (2011). Lost in translation? The challenges of an equitable post-disaster reconstruction process: Lessons from Chile. Environmental Hazards, 10(3-4), 293–309.

Ophiyandri, T., Amaratunga, D., Pathirage, C., & Keraminiyage, K. (2013). Critical success factors for community-based post-disaster housing reconstruction projects in the pre-construction stage in Indonesia. International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment, 4(2), 236–249.

Dear Dr.Omar Dario Cardona

DearDr.Dzulkarnaen Ismail

Thank you so much for your comments. I will look for the papers you mentioned. I am involved in a recovery and reconstruction project in a country of south east asia after a typhoon in 2013. The basic facility is BBB.  I will try to understand the origin of BBB .

regards 

I would welcome discussing applications of BBB frameworks in the field. our team have been working on a number of papers. see the google drive

This folder contains all the papers:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B75XCBZC_MLIcm1UTkNBaERUUm8

and also the Centre for Disaster Resilience, Recovery and Reconstruction (CDRRR) www.cdrrr.auckland.ac.nz

Thank you very much for all these answers, but in my point of view this slogan as used in SFDRR is far beyond build back buildings better, it concern also capacity building in order to be able to build society better and thus recovering and reconstructing better. We know many experiences in the world in which because of the funds were flowing during this phase several entreprises were eager to to do the job but they did not have adequate skilled people. Capacity building of human cvapital is badly needed to include it the slogan. In general I would suggest that a second reading of SFDRR is needed to take into account these remarks after three years of SFDRR implementation.

Thanks to all.