For the second year running we include a special section that shares key outputs of Action Against Hunger's Research for Nutrition Conference held in November 2016. Elsewhere, experiences are shared including:

•​scale up of integrated management of acute malnutrition in Afghanistan

•health systems strengthening in Somalia

•treating acute malnutrition in older people in Ethiopia

•UNHCR experiences of programme monitoring in unstable populations

A. SITUATION ANALYSIS

Major highlight of the operation update:

• The number of families to be supported with shelter cash grants has been increased to 2,501 upon request from the government to support additional families from its grievance list.

Description of the disaster

An earthquake measuring 7.8 magnitude struck an area between Kathmandu and Pokhara in the morning of 25 April 2015. A series of aftershocks continued to impact the country, causing further damage and panic. The strongest aftershock, measuring 7.3 magnitude, struck on 12 May 2015 at 12:50 local time at the border of Dolakha and Sindhupalchok districts. The combined impact of 25 April 2015 quake and the 12 May 2015 aftershock resulted in 8,856 casualties and at least 17,932 injured people. In addition to loss of life and human suffering, the two quakes caused extensive destruction and damage to housing, infrastructure and livelihoods, leading to a drastic reduction in living conditions, income, and access to basic services, such as health and water and sanitation. More than 1.1 million families were affected and 700,000 families displaced. Secondary data analysis and earthquake intensity mapping indicated that up to 602,000 houses were fully destroyed and a further 280,000 damaged. The infrastructure damage included schools, health facilities, bridges and roads. More than 30,000 classrooms were destroyed or damaged. According to the government, 14 districts were severely affected (Category A) and include Gorkha, Kathmandu, Bhaktapur, Lalitpur, Sindhupalchok, Ramechhap, Dolakha, Nuwakot, Dhading, Rasuwa, Sindhuli, Okhaldhunga, Makwanpur, and Kavre. In addition, nine districts (Sangja, Chitwan, Kaski, Tanahu, Khotang, Solukhumbu, Udayapur, Bhojpur and Lamjung) with medium level damages (Category B), were also affected. Many of the hardest-hit areas were rural, with some of them remote and difficult to reach, due to landslides and damaged/blocked access routes.

Nepal experienced incessant rainfall between 11 and 14 August 2017, resulting in widespread floods across 31 of the country’s 75 districts. According to the Nepal Red Cross Society assessment report of 7 September 2017, the floods affected over 1.7 million people in 31 districts. Four of the earthquake affected districts were also affected by the floods (Sindhuli, Makawanpur, Lalitpur, Bhaktapur). In response to the floods situation, IFRC allocated Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) of CHF 497,099 on 14 August 2017 to support NRCS in carrying out immediate relief activities.

An Emergency Appeal of CHF 3.5 million was launched on 22 August 2017 to meet humanitarian needs of 16,200 families, based on the initial rapid assessment (IRA) preliminary findings. For more information about the floods operation, refer to this link: Nepal Floods 2017 Nepal held Federal Parliament and Provincial Assembly elections simultaneously in two phases on 26 November and 7 December 2017. These elections have been crucial steps to implement the milestone new constitution of Nepal promulgated in September 2015 and are in line with the new Federal structure. Following the parliamentary polls, the 41st Prime Minister was sworn in on 15 February 2018 by the President.

The new Nepal federal structure has been implemented where the provincial, municipal and local bodies have been created separately. The government still has to set up offices, recruit staff and most of all, elections will be held to select the people who will run these bodies. NRCS is also reviewing its internal working structure to be in line with the Federal structure. Delay in activity implementation may be experienced since NRCS works in coordination with local authorities.

Delays may also be experienced due to some of the local offices not being set up yet or new staff in the offices set up who will need orientation to understand NRCS programmes.

This report investigates food security resilience in Far-Western Nepal. We explore avenues to implement a low-cost food security resilience monitoring system; develop a theoretical framework and quantitative methodology for measuring resilience; and qualitatively explore the effect of transnational migration and remittances on well-being, gender equality, and livelihood choices.

The report argues that rapid assessment indicators of food security can form the basis of an inexpensive resilience monitoring system. We also find that nearly 80% of all household capital is in the form of human capital, which illustrates the importance of migration, despite the pressures such a choice imposes on family and social structure. We show that within-community economic networks, especially as manifest in labor sharing, are critical and understudied aspects of the rural economy.

Kathmandu, April 16: Representatives from various development partner organizations, who have been supporting Nepal in post-earthquake reconstruction, presented their progress reports at a function organized by National Reconstruction Authority (NRA).

NRA held the 7th meeting of Development Assistance Coordination and Facilitation Committee (DACFC) at its office at Singha Durbar today to get updates from its partner organizations on the on-going reconstruction works.

At the meeting, the development partners welcomed the newly-introduced organizational structure of NRA and expressed their confidence that the pace of reconstruction would now expedite.

The 12th Steering Committee meeting held under the chairmanship of Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli approved the new organizational structure of NRA, bringing Central and District Level Project Implementation Units under NRA.

Speaking at the function, Roland Safer, the ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany, shed light on the German support in the reconstruction of health and educational institutions, restoration of drinking water facilities and other technical support.

Similarly, representatives from the embassies of China, India and Switzerland also presented their respective progress updates on reconstruction projects that are completed and currently undertaken by them and further steps that are being carried out to complete the on-going projects in a timely manner.

The representatives and heads of partner organizations from Japan, the USA and the UK, JICA, USAID, and DFID respectively, presented their progress reports of the reconstruction activities undertaken by them.

Also presenting progress reports at the meeting were representatives from European Union, the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, the UN agencies (UNDP and UNOPS and HRRP).

During the meeting, various participants expressed their curiosity about private housing reconstruction progress for earthquake victims, who are currently living in vulnerable conditions and about integrating local level in reconstruction activities.

Chair of the DACFC meeting NRA Chief Executive Officer Yuba Raj Bhusal mentioned that since the district level structures are not functional anymore, reconstruction activities are going to be carried out directly from the local level. Stating that the new structure is already operational, CEO Bhusal expressed his confidence that the reform will further expedite the reconstruction process.

Requesting allies and development organization to present proposal for private housing reconstruction of elderly citizens above the age of 70, single woman above the age of 65, differently able with red and blue card holders and minors under the age of 16, CEO Bhusal said, “We have prioritized private housing reconstruction of 18,505 earthquake victims who are living in vulnerable conditions.”

He also requested the participants of the meeting to periodically provide updates on reconstruction projects being carried out by them and to complete them as soon as possible.

Executive Members of NRA Dr. Chandra Bahadur Shrestha, Dr. Hari Ram Parajuli, Bishnu Bhandari, Acting Secretary Raju Man Manandhar, Join-Secretary and Spokesperson Yam Lal Bhusal, Netra Subedi and Prakash Thapa were present in this meeting. Joint-Secretary and Spokesperson Bhusal presented the progress update of NRA Activities in different sectors and new restructuring of NRA.

Foreword

South Asia’s rich human and physical geography are tightly bound to the rivers that radiate out and down from the great Himalayan massif and the extensive Indo-Gangetic basin aquifers. Driving some of the largest irrigation systems in human history and nourishing populations and ecosystems straddling rich alluvial floodplains, the annual flood pulses of these rivers — the Ganga, Indus, Brahmaputra and Meghna amongst them — has determined the development of human civilizations and provided livelihood security for several millennia. More recently, groundwater from alluvial and hard-rock aquifers has augmented less reliable surface supplies for irrigation and become the primary source of rural, urban and industrial water supplies.

These water resources are now rapidly changing, and this change brings heightened risk and uncertainty. Global warming is altering the behavior of the great ice mass — the cryosphere or ‘third pole’ — and is also affecting the pattern and behavior of monsoonal rains, river flow regimes, evaporation and demand patterns. Groundwater resources are under unprecedented pressure. The qualities of rivers and aquifers are deteriorating from contamination from communities, cities, industries and agriculture. Floods, droughts and cyclones cause devastation for millions. Climate extremes, together with changes in annual rainfall and sea-level rise, will affect the lives of over a billion people, increasing human insecurity and hindering the wider development efforts and economic growth directions of the region.

These series of South Asia Water Initiative reports were commissioned to help support greater understanding of these change including ways in which better water resources management can enable more effective climate adaptation policy, practice, design and implementation across the countries of South Asia. The summary report has drawn from three background papers and a range of expert inputs from IWMI, the World Bank and international and regional climate and water resource management experts.
By assessing available evidence and mapping the landscape of existing knowledge and policy approaches in South Asia, while keeping in mind key socio-economic and institutional contexts, this summary report and background papers inform public debate on climate change and water resources management in South Asia and provide valuable inputs to effective decision making.
The hope is that the guidance and recommendations offered by the wider project, of which these reports form a part, will enable South Asian governments and societies to enhance their capacities for building resilience to further climate change — which is now inevitable — and ensure a more sustainable and secure future for the whole region.

Pre-monsoon rains fell last week on what is now regarded as the most densely populated refugee settlement in the world – and certainly among the most acutely vulnerable – near Cox’s Bazar on Bangladesh’s southern coast.

On Wednesday, a “bout of rain lasted only an hour, but brought strong winds and left destruction in its wake,” the UK Guardian’s Kaamil Ahmed reported from the city.

“I thought my hut was going to be blown down by the wind,” he quoted Nur Jahan, 27, as saying. “I was trying to save my ration cards because I thought if I lost those, we won’t be able to get our rations.

“The water was gathering on my roof and it almost caved in, and at the same time I was worried about it blowing off.”

The IFRC’s Lynette Nyman, who visited the camps the morning after the downpours, tweeted that the rains had provided a glimpse of what was coming when the monsoon proper is unleashed.

Photos tweeted by the International Organization for Migration graphically highlighted the access problems that heavy rains will bring humanitarian agencies.

The IFRC’s Head of Operations in Cox’s Bazar, Steve McAndrew, told Reuters conditions in the camps are getting worse, and “they are going to continue to get worse as the rainy season comes”.

The South Asian Climate Outlook Forum (SASCOF) Friday said “normal rainfall is most likely” during the monsoon season, with some local variations between above and below normal.

At the end of its meeting in Pune, India, however, the SASCOF statement, reported by the World Meteorological Organization, recalled that although last year overall monsoon rainfall was also statistically near average, many parts of South Asia were anyway affected by flooding – most seriously after extremely heavy rainfall centred on eastern Nepal, northern Bangladesh, and adjacent areas of India; more than 40 million people were affected and an estimated 1,200 people died.

The statement added that there’s now is “acute concern” about the impact of the monsoon and cyclone season on the Rohingya.

Historically, the wettest month in Bangladesh is July, when it can rain almost every day, generating a total for an average month of up to around 600mm; by comparison, the UK – a country famous for its rainy weather – got 1,133mm in the whole of 2017, an average year, according to its Met Office.

‘Climate risk management’

Climate Centre Director Maarten van Aalst said the potential destructiveness of even a below-average monsoon has emphasized the centrality of the “maximum effort” for seasonal preparedness the Red Cross Red Crescent and other agencies have been engaged in for months now.

“This grievously hazardous situation in Cox’s Bazar is a clear example of how we need to advocate for what’s now called climate-risk management – even without a seasonal prediction or certainty about a strong trend,” he said Friday.

“The key issue with ‘risk’ is often not so much the hazard itself but exposure and vulnerability: in this case the huge number of people concentrated in dangerous places in very difficult conditions.

“I’d also emphasize the intense rain in the monsoon last year in Bangladesh, which fits a pattern of a rising uncertainties and rainfall extremes – in the case of Cox’s bazaar exacerbating one of the most unpredictable hazards of all: landslides.

Up to around a quarter of homes in the Cox’s Bazar camps are reported to have been destroyed by Cyclone Mora last year, with hundreds of thousands of refugees digging new ones into precarious hillsides and flood-prone land that local people have avoided settling on.

‘Complex warren’

Van Aalst added: “In effect, around Cox’s Bazar, we have triple jeopardy: a routine seasonal risk very possibly exacerbated by climate change and certainly by displacement on a massive scale.

Short-term intensity of rainfall will also be a key risk-management issue over the next few months, Van Aalst warned, and disaster managers are strongly advised to monitor local five- or six-day forecasts and the IFRC map room for indications of this.

“With limited humanitarian resources, rarely will the Red Cross Red Crescent focus on the most vulnerable have seemed more essential,” he added, recalling the inter-agency assessment that used drone imagery, historic rainfall data, and local interviews to gauge the risk of floods and landslides throughout what it called “the complex warren of interconnected streams and sloping hills” in the camps.

That risk analysis, released in January, estimated that at least 86,000 people were living in areas at particularly high risk of floods while more than 23,000 were on steep, unstable hillsides that could crumble with continuous heavy rainfall; the camp population has risen by some 200,000 people since.

The most recent (12 April) sitrep from the Inter Sector Coordination Group puts emergency preparedness for the cyclone and monsoon season at the top of its list of operational highlights.

“Refugee sites remain dangerously congested and exposed to serious risk of floods and landslides,” the ISCG says. “At present refugees are limited to bamboo and tarpaulin shelters; they have nowhere to escape high-wind events like cyclones.”

For now, brief pre-monsoon downpours in the Rohingya camps have caused relatively minor disruption and provided children like these small boys, wading across the puddles that appeared outside their homes last week, with somewhere new to play. But they are also a warning shot on what is to come when the monsoon season proper begins shortly. (Photo: Lynette Nyman/IFRC Cox’s Bazar)

Govt yet to raise half the funds necessary to rebuild over 5,500 schools

Apr 23, 2018-Three years after the devastating earthquake, the government has hardly completed reconstruction of one third school buildings while it is still struggling to generate half of the total required funds. This clearly hints that rebuilding works will not be over on time.

Some 33,000 classrooms at around 9,000 schools were destroyed in the 2015 Gorkha earthquake in 39 districts. Their reconstruction is going on in 32 districts where 7,923 schools were either destroyed or partially damaged.

A report of the Central Level Project Implementation Unit (Education) shows that 3,613 schools have been rebuilt while the government has generated resources for 2,047 more schools in two years of the reconstruction process.

This shows that the government is yet to ensure funding for 2,363 schools from the 32 highly affected districts in addition to 3,400 schools from other districts. The Post Disaster Recovery Framework (PDRF) prepared by the National Reconstruction Authority in May last year estimated that Rs180 billion would be required for the construction of quake-destroyed academic institutions and Rs167 billion for rebuilding schools and classrooms.

The CLPIU shows that Rs78.8 billion has either been spent or released for reconstruction, meaning that there is still a deficit of Rs88.2 billion in school construction. “Generating necessary funds is a huge challenge. This could push our deadline,” Im Narayan Shrestha, chief of the CLPIU, told journalists at an interaction organised by Education Journalists’ Network in the Capital on Sunday. He, however, said since some of the destroyed schools have already opted for merger, construction undertaken by the School Management Committee (SMG) is cheaper compared to the contractors’ cost.

About 75 percent of the schools are being constructed through the SMC’s. The PDRF had aimed to complete school reconstruction by May 2019. Officials said that the lack necessary funds and slow pace of reconstruction would make achievement of the target difficult.

“It will take at least one more year for [project] completion,” said Baikuntha Aryal, spokesperson for the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology. More than one million children are studying in the schools affected by earthquakes.

The CLPIU report blames the reconstruction delays on bilateral or multi-lateral donor agencies. Among the 655 schools that Japanese International Cooperation Agency, USAID, Japanese Fund for Poverty Reduction, and Indian and Chinese governments pledged for rebuilding, only 17 have been constructed so far.

The progress of non-government agencies, however, is better. As many as 1,050 schools have been constructed while 126 are in the process of construction with support from 180 NGOs.

Executive Summary

In April 2015, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Nepal, killing over 9,000 people, destroying or badly damaging more than 800,000 homes and displacing approximately 2.8 million people. Where shocks like earthquakes cannot easily be prevented, strengthening the ability to prepare, respond and recover is critical to maintaining development gains in spite of them. In this context, resilience can be thought of as the combination of pre-existing capacities and the responses used to cope and recover in the aftermath. Ultimately, the ability of households to maintain their long-term wellbeing in the face of shocks depends upon the combination of their capacities and how they are used. To understand what mattered for recovery in the short and long-term, this study followed the same households 10 weeks, one year and two years after the Gorkha earthquake. The analysis will explore what factors mattered most for short-term coping and longterm recovery in order to improve humanitarian response and design of recovery programs in the aftermath of acute disasters.

Climbing the quiet, winding dirt roads of the remote mountainside communities outside Kathmandu, Nepal, it’s difficult to imagine the chaos once felt here. Today, in these small villages, farmers quietly tend the vast, green terraces that wrap the hillsides. Children in blue uniforms and backpacks giggle as they walk home from school. Billowy clouds quell the heat as families gather for tea and birds sing a melody in the background. Every now and then, a rooster crows.

Life seems peaceful here, uncomplicated. But with that simplicity comes an innate vulnerability — in a country that was already one of the poorest in the world, recovering from the severe earthquake that struck three years ago has been a difficult process.

The earthquake, a 7.8 magnitude quake, destroyed over 800,000 homes and affected around 8 million people. Nearly 9,000 were killed and 23,000 injured. In a matter of minutes, entire livelihoods and communities were wiped out and 2.8 million people were left in need.

Even now as laughter comes easy and people move calmly through their days, communities still bear the quiet scars of that disaster: temporary shelters, half-constructed buildings, small piles of rubble and a sincere uncertainty as to when things will be back to where they were before.

Mercy Corps responded in the days after the earthquake, helping 135,000 people with emergency aid, and has since been working to help the hardest-hit communities recover and build back stronger than they were before. Three years after the initial devastation, learn what recovery has been like for some of the people we’ve been working with:

Sunmaya

From the doorstep of her home, a modest structure at the top of a narrow, crooked staircase carved into the steep hillside, Sunmaya reflects on the past three years. Her house still shows signs of the earthquake — deep cracks, crooked flooring, a crumbling facade — and she doesn’t know when they’ll come up with the money to repair it.

The damage worries her, but in the wake of the disaster it wasn’t her own home she was concerned about — it was the devastation to her elderly mother-in-law’s house, a short distance below. “It had huge cracks,” Sunmaya says. So she took action.

Sunmaya trained with Mercy Corps for 50 days to learn how to build homes using earthquake-resistant materials and design. “Before the earthquake, I didn’t really think much about building a house,” she says. “But after the earthquake there were a lot of people rebuilding houses, so I did think that I wanted to build a house. I wanted to go everywhere and build everybody’s houses.”

Learn more about the rebuilding effort

After the training, she constructed a new house for her mother-in-law and was hired to help build three others in her community. Eventually, she wants to rebuild her family’s home, too. “I can build my own house,” she says, acknowledging what she can accomplish with her new set of skills. “I don’t have to hire somebody else. Now I can do my own work.”

Sushma

With a wide, shy smile, Sushma points to the expanse of farmland she now owns and cultivates in her village: great stretches of terraced plots dotted with neat rows of wheat, barley, mushrooms, carrots and many other vegetables.

"At the beginning, the vegetables we grew were just enough for the family," she explains. "Now, I take vegetables to the market to sell every week. We are using the income ... to cover all our household expenses."

When the earthquake toppled her community three years ago, Sushma was faced with the agonizing question of how to rebuild her family’s life from rubble. “We didn’t have a house anymore. … We did not have money at that time to rebuild,” she says. “There were a lot of unknowns: what to do, where to live. We didn’t even have food to eat.”

With a new baby to care for, she and her husband had no choice but to push forward. They began clearing the wreckage, salvaging what they could, and working in neighboring fields to earn a small amount of money. Essential supplies and emergency cash from Mercy Corps helped them begin the slow process of recovery.

“We used that money to buy seeds and planted our [own] fields,” Sushma explains. The couple took a loan to begin rebuilding their home, and Sushma participated in Mercy Corps’ vegetable farming training to learn how to grow stronger, more diverse crops and secure a more reliable long-term income. Slowly, they put their life back together.

Today, with a roof over their heads and money coming in, she is able to think about the future for the first time in a long time: she wants to expand her farming income to send her children to school. “I didn’t start out with that kind of courage,” she says. “Now, I have been trained. After the training, I realized that I should do something myself to earn money. I realized that if we work hard, we can make things happen.”

Saraswoti

Behind a wide counter piled with dishes and large plastic bins of wrapped candy, Saraswoti gently stirs a pot of noodles, the boiling water releasing tufts of steam into the air. Three skinny men drink tea at a wooden table along the opposite wall while other customers linger at the store’s entrance, considering their purchases.

Three years ago the earthquake brought business at Saraswoti’s snack shop, then at a smaller location, to a halt. “There was a lot of glass and things that got broken. Food got destroyed,” she says. “The business was our only source of income, so we were sure we needed to recover.”

Her community, like many others badly affected by the quake, lacked access to financial services like loans, savings accounts and financial education, so Mercy Corps provided financial literacy training and helped local institutions supply the financial resources people would need to move forward.

“When I took the financial literacy class, I thought about going more professional with my shop,” Saraswoti says. “So we rented the new space and wanted to grow it.” She was able to get a loan to expand — and start two other businesses, growing potatoes and raising chickens.

Today, even while her home still requires repairs, she’s using her new financial know-how to build stability for the future: she invests, sends her children to private school, has an emergency fund and savings for each of her kids.

I have always been enterprising, she says with a laugh. “Wherever there is work to be done. As long as I am alive, I want to work.”

Krishna

After three years living in a temporary shelter, battling the heat and rain from inside a tent, Krishna is relieved to soon be moving his wife and children into their new, earthquake-resistant house. He has only to clear the last of the construction materials and complete the exterior finishes before they can call it home.

It has been a long journey to get here. The damage done by the earthquake was overwhelming for Krishna: his house had collapsed and he had nowhere safe to take his children. “I could not even sleep because I don’t have money,” he remembers, “and I didn’t know where to start. There was no way for me to start rebuilding.”

More survivor stories from the days after the quake

Mercy Corps’ mason training was welcome support. Because Krishna also has a disability that makes it difficult for him to do intense manual labor, his lot was used for the training’s demonstration house. Over the course of the training, he and the group learned how to build an earthquake-resistant house by actually building one — by building Krishna’s.

The other participants, now skilled masons, have since moved on to build other homes in the community, earning income they can use to support their own recovery. And with the hurdle of safe shelter behind him, Krishna can now focus on other things, including his farming and sending his children to school.

“At that time [of the earthquake], the house was the ground and we didn’t know where to take the kids,” he says. “There was a lot of difficulty we had to go through. Now the house is here and we can move in any time, so we feel secure.”

Shyam and Sabitri

“The day of the earthquake was a day I could never have imagined,” says Shyam (right). “Huge rocks started rolling down the hill and I felt that I might not live.” The earthquake had triggered a landslide that sent massive boulders barreling through their hillside village, razing everything in their path.

Shyam and Sabitri’s home, near the top of the hill, was spared, but the fields and greenhouses they relied on for food and income were destroyed. “We couldn’t stay here,” Shyam explains. “The vegetable farming was all gone. We had to pack up and leave this place.”

Terrified that more rocks would fall, the couple stayed in a temporary shelter with several other families for nearly a year, unable to farm their land and unsure of how to move forward. “We couldn’t imagine a future at all back then,” Shyam says.

They had given up on ever returning home until Mercy Corps secured the hillside with a gabion wall to protect it from future landslides, allowing them to move back into their house and begin recovering their livelihood.

“Mercy Corps came and gave us assurance,” Shyam says, “and slowly, after we felt more and more secure, we started vegetable farming again.”

The couple also received supplies to build new greenhouses and participated in Mercy Corps’ vegetable farming training to learn how to make their land more productive. Today they live peacefully in their home, raising livestock and growing fields full of cauliflower and tomatoes to support themselves.

“I used to think that our home base was destroyed forever," Sabitri says. "Now, I feel that everything is almost back to the way it was before.”

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AT A GLANCE

Region East Asia and Pacific
Risks Reversal of development gains post-disaster; long term economic and fiscal impacts
Area of Engagement Deepening financial protection

Following a successful pilot program, Pacific Island Countries established a sovereign catastrophe risk insurance company for the region, increasing resilience and access to short-term funds needed to respond to disasters.

HIGH VULNERABILITY, LIMITED BUDGETS

The Pacific Island Countries (PICs) are among the top 30 nations in the world most vulnerable to natural disasters. Subject to tropical cyclones and drought, in addition to volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and tsunamis, the PICs suffer average disaster damages of more than $280 million per year. At the onset of a natural hazard impact, governments require rapid-response, disaster risk financing instruments that can provide immediate liquidity to pay for emergency response and to maintain basic public services. However, access to short-term debt is often constrained due to the small size of island economies, which restricts their borrowing capacity and access to financial markets.

Compounding this effect, PICs generally have limited budget reserves, which often force governments to reallocate public resources away from national development priorities – and can have adverse, long-term economic impacts. Without easy access to debt and robust financial instruments, the capacity of PIC governments to respond quickly to a natural disaster is dramatically reduced.

by Tika Prasad Bhatta, Manthali

Apr 25, 2018-Around 20,000 families in Ramechhap are still living in earthquake-damaged homes. Many families have carried out minor repair works like re-roofing, beam buttressing and wall crack plastering on their damaged homes, but they can hardly be called safe.

Jit Bahadur Shrestha of Himganga village said his family was living in the same house that was damaged by the earthquake of 25 April, 2015.

“We moved in after fixing the cracks in the walls because the house rebuilding aid was not forthcoming any time soon,” Shrestha said.

The earthquake-affected families in Ramechhap say lengthy aid distribution process led them to move into their rickety, old homes, because they could not carry on living under makeshift huts for years.

According to the District Secretariat of the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA), 42,000 families have signed the housing aid agreement in Ramechhap. Among them, around 35,000 families have started the construction of new houses and around 10,000 families are waiting for the third instalment of the housing aid0.

Of 42,000 earthquake-affected families, around 7,000 families have already received the third instalment of the aid.

Parikshit Kadariya, chief of the District Project Implementation Unit of the Urban Development and Building Construction Division Office, said the quake victims were unaware about quake-resilient homes.

“In rural parts of the district, the earthquake-affected families have built homes that cannot be considered safe in terms of earthquake risks,” he said.

Landslide threat looms in Sindhu

SINDHUPALCHOK: Several earthquake-hit families in Bhotekoshi, Tatopani, Listikot and Paugumba areas in Sindhupalchok district have constructed new houses at landslide-prone areas. They said they had no option but to build there because the government did not offer them safer locations for resettlement. The 2015 Gorkha earthquake has led to slope failures and destabilisation of land in many parts of Sindhupalchok, making them vulnerable to landslides.

Hundreds of thousands of children have been given education and protection support - but lack of funds means many schools still have to be repaired or replaced.

Many children are back in school three years after an earthquake devastated parts of Nepal and killed almost 9000 people.

But in some parts of the country, reconstruction has been slow - with the government completing work on only a third of school buildings that were badly damaged or destroyed. Funding has been a major issue and has resulted in nearly 6000 state-run schools still needing to be rebuilt.

In some areas, however, new earthquake-proof schools have been built and programmes to protect vulnerable children have proved successful. This has helped to prevent child trafficking, child labour or sexual abuse, according to the charity Save the Children.

A massive earthquake of 7.8 magnitude shook Nepal on April 25, 2015 and destroyed or damaged around 9000 schools and 30,000 classrooms. Almost one million children were out of school in the immediate aftermath and the quake was followed by a major aftershock on May 12.

In the worst-hit areas, 90% of schools were destroyed, with hundreds of temporary learning centres set up after the disaster. At the time, there was concern for the future of millions of traumatised Nepalese children - and fears that if they didn’t return to school quickly they could become victims of child marriage, trafficking and child labour.

A report this week by the Central Level Project Implementation Unit (CLPIU) said 3613 schools have been rebuilt, while the government has generated resources for 2047 more schools. But the government has yet to ensure funding for another 2363 schools in the 32 worst-affected districts and 3400 more schools elsewhere.

The CLPIU report blamed reconstruction delays on bilateral or multilateral donor agencies. Of the 655 schools that the Japanese International Cooperation Agency, USAID, Japanese Fund for Poverty Reduction, and Indian and Chinese governments pledged to rebuild, only 17 have been constructed so far.

“Generating necessary funds is a huge challenge,” Im Narayan Shrestha, chief of the CLPIU, said in Kathmandu this week.

The progress made by NGOs, however, has been better. As many as 1050 schools have been constructed, while 126 are in the process of construction with support from 180 non-profits.

Save the Children is among a number of organisations working in Nepal to get children back into education. The charity told Their News it has helped 350,000 children over the past three years and hopes many children can now go to school “fearless”.

A spokesman said: “We have completed building seven schools and 15 more will be ready by July 2018. We are also constructing 15 early childhood development and care centres in SIndhupalchok, one of the most earthquake-affected districts. In the last three years we have reached over 350,000 children.

“Save the Children works in all phases of disaster management by being actively involved in humanitarian responses and recovery as well as preparedness and disaster risk reduction.

"In doing so, we try and ensure that during emergency situations children's immediate needs are met, that they have access to education and protection services and are able to return to regain a sense of normalcy.

“We have enhanced our humanitarian preparedness and response capacity to deliver lifesaving relief, including the necessary materials needed for teachers to start schools and children to go back to school as soon as possible after the disaster.”

Save the Children is building 23 new schools in the earthquake-affected districts of Dolaka, Sindupalchok, Kavrepalanchok, Rasuwa and Gorkha. All of these schools follow the Nepal government’s building code of conduct and are earthquake-resistant. To do this, the structures are analysed by engineers who consider the seismic load and building design during construction.

"At the inauguration of a new school building, a teacher said that children can be fearless in the school now." - Save the Children

According to data from the Education Cluster - the various UN agencies, education ministry, NGOs and other organisations working together - 3157 schools have been built out of 7923 that needed to be reconstructed.

Save the Children said: “At the inauguration of a new school building of Shanti Buddha School in Kavreplanchok district recently, a teacher said that children can be fearless in the school now. Her words capture what Save the Children works to achieve for children affected by disasters - feel fearless when they go to school.

“The community took up the responsibility of building the school as per the government-approved safer school design while working closely with Save the Children’s engineers. After almost three years of studying in temporary classrooms, children from earthquake-affected areas are moving into new safer school buildings.”

There are two types of building work going on in Nepal - constructing new schools and reconstructing or "retrofitting" existing schools.

After the earthquake, Save the Children established around 500 temporary learning centres (TLCs) in nine of the earthquake affected districts. Some children are still studying in TLCs while others are in permanent or semi-permanent classrooms.

Child protection programmes have proved highly successful. Child-friendly spaces were set up immediately after the earthquake to ensure safety, security and psychosocial support for children.

In order to combat possible trafficking, listening posts were set up in major trafficking routes and villages. Village Child Protection Committees were also given training on psychological first aid, to reduce stress and provide counselling when needed.

Save the Children said: “Currently, all of our child protection programmes in earthquake-affected areas have concluded. There have been no reports of increases in child trafficking, child labour or sexual abuse as result of the disaster.”

Nepal was also hit by severe flooding and landslides caused by heavy monsoon rains last year. The floods destroyed 80 schools and damaged 710.

Education Cannot Wait - a global fund established to provide money in humanitarian emergencies - supported up to 50% of the emergency education response after the floods.

In February, Nepal pledged to increase its education budget to 20% of the total national budget. The Ministry of Education made its commitment after widespread concern that the quality of public education had dwindled due to inadequate investment.

As Nepal marks three years since the devastating 2015 earthquake, the people in Belkot municipality in Nuwakot celebrated the opening of a brand new, earthquake-resistant and disabled-friendly health post, equipped with a birthing facility.

State Minister for Health and Population Padma Kumari Aryal inaugurated the newly build Belkot Health Post on Tuesday in Belkot, Nuwakot.

Nepal’s health sector faced a huge loss as thousands of health facilities in the villages and towns were damaged by the powerful 2015 earthquake, jeopardizing the delivery of health services in all the quake-affected districts. There are still hundreds of health facilities waiting to be rebuilt.

The Belkot health post is one of the 10 health posts being constructed by UNDP in Nuwakot under the coordination of the Health Ministry and with the funding from the Korean Government. These health post buildings, built based on modern Korean technology, are anticipated to last for more than 30 years. According to the Health District health officials, construction of rest of the nine health posts will be complete in the next few months, and will directly benefit over 28,000 people in the district.

The Belkot health post and all other nine health posts under construction are disabled friendly and there is a provision for birthing center. Taking into consideration the importance of safe disposable of hospital waste, all the health posts are well equipped with hospital waste management system and health post staff were trained on safe waste management.

On the same day, State Minister Aryal and Korean Ambassador also laid the foundation stone of Trisuli Hospital Nuwakot building being constructed by the Ministry with Korean support. “There has been a significant progress in the post-earthquake reconstruction. We are thankful to all our supporters who have helped us bring smiles to the faces of people through their crucial support in the reconstruction of health post and other public infrastructure,” said Aryal.

Opening the fully furnished health post in Belkot, Korean Ambassador Park Young-sik said he is hopeful that the newly built health post will make health services more accessible to the local people. The health post reconstruction process also included training of local masons on safer reconstruction and a cash-for-work scheme that involved more than 600 local people on temporary employment, said to UNDP’s Deputy Country Director Sophie Kemkhadze.

MANILA (25 April 2018) - Three years after the devastating 2015 earthquake, Habitat for Humanity Nepal shares the pride of Dilaka who rebuilt her house in Kavrepalanchok district. "I decided to rebuild my house though I did not have enough resources. With the support of Habitat Nepal, along with the government grant, my family and I now have a safe roof above our heads. I am very proud of my house."

Dilaka is among hundreds of families who have worked with Habitat Nepal to rebuild their houses based on a homeowner-driven reconstruction approach. As we mark the third anniversary of the disaster, Habitat continues to walk together with affected families and communities on the long road to recovery.

Habitat for Humanity joins other organizations including Youth for Human Rights International Nepal Chapter in a candlelight memorial at the Pashupati Nath temple, a world heritage site in Kathmandu. In a dedication ceremony in Baluwa, Kavrepalanchok attended by National Reconstruction Authority representatives and Kavrepalanchok government officials, Habitat Nepal handed over a new house to Chameli, a 35-year-old widow with two young children. The house was built with compressed stabilized earth blocks produced through a livelihood model program that has trained 60 community members in partnership with NRA.

Rick Hathaway, Asia-Pacific vice president of Habitat for Humanity International, says: "At the three-year mark of our response in Nepal, we can celebrate how far we have come because of the support from our donors and partners. Every family needs help when a disaster strikes. By working together with the communities, we have enabled affected families to rebuild their homes, increased the communities' resilience through training in the Participatory Approach to Safe Shelter Awareness, and improved construction and livelihood skills." He adds: "The work does not stop here as we are committed to the national reconstruction effort."

Habitat for Humanity was among the first organizations to respond after the magnitude-7.8 earthquake on April 25, 2018 followed by a strong magnitude-7.3 aftershock on May 12, 2018 struck several districts in Nepal. In the early phase of Habitat's response following the disaster - said to be the worst earthquake to hit Nepal in 80 years - hundreds of local volunteers were mobilized to clear tons of rubble from affected areas. Temporary shelter kits, water backpacks and winterization kits were also distributed to meet the families' shelter and other needs during the emergency phase of the response.

The earthquake took away what people had saved and preserved but what it failed to take away was the people's resilient spirit and the common purpose to rise above the adversity. Thanks to committed donor and partner support, Habitat Nepal is able to complete 692 new houses with another 373 houses under construction. Those who have received training in masonry, block-making, plumbing and other livelihood skills now have the opportunities to contribute to the recovery process. As Habitat draws close to completing the projects that have received donor support in Kavrepalanchok and Nuwakot districts, we seek to serve more affected families through building back safer and promoting community resilience.

Some of the challenges still remain - the pace and scale of reconstruction, and the funding gap needs to be addressed. Habitat Nepal's three Housing Support Service Centers have provided 1,065 families with services that include technical consultations, house designs, and help with site supervision and document preparation to apply for government reconstruction grants. Overall, Habitat Nepal has served the shelter needs of at least 45,829 families from emergency relief to recovery and reconstruction in the last three years.

To put families and communities in charge of rebuilding their own permanent homes, Habitat Nepal implements its response through a four-pillar approach. The vital sectors comprise social mobilization that helps empower communities to join rebuilding efforts while technical assistance aims to provide improved construction skills for safer reconstruction. Vulnerable households also get non-financial support for income-generating activities through tiered assistance. And lastly, market development helps improve housing value through access to better construction materials and labor.

Gender and social inclusion is promoted in various training. Every one in four persons trained under the Participatory Approach to Safe Shelter Awareness is a woman. In earthquake recovery areas, more women have become active participants in their community's self-recovery, enhancing their local capacities as trained masons, surveyors and engineers.

In spite of challenges that the government faces to address the massive housing needs three years after the earthquake, Habitat Nepal will continue supporting earthquake-affected families especially those in underserved and hard-to-reach communities to complement ongoing government housing interventions. With more than 20 years of experience working together with the people of Nepal, Habitat for Humanity with the support of its generous donors, volunteers and supporters will continue to build resilient communities, where families have access to decent and affordable housing. Through shelter, we empower.

Notes to Editors
To set up interviews, receive photos or further information, please contact Aaron Aspi, aaspi@habitat.orgaaspi@habitat.org or +63 920 956 9181; Michele Soh, msoh@habitat.orgmsoh@habitat.org or +65 9233 1544. Photos are available in this link: goo.gl/WCZdqH

About Habitat for Humanity
Driven by the vision that everyone needs a decent place to live, Habitat for Humanity began in 1976 as a grassroots effort. The Christian housing organization has since grown to become a leading global nonprofit working in more than 70 countries. In the Asia-Pacific region since 1983, Habitat for Humanity has supported more than 2.5 million people to build or improve a place they can call home. Through financial support, volunteering or adding a voice to support affordable housing, everyone can help families achieve the strength, stability and self-reliance they need to build better lives for themselves. Through shelter, we empower. To learn more, donate or volunteer, visit habitat.org/asiapacific

Three years after the quake, government programmes to speed up new construction often still overlook the needs of female-headed households

By Pragati Shahi

Freelance journalist based in Kathmandu

Three years after earthquakes levelled parts of Nepal’s remote Dolakha District, Sun Maya Tamang is left on her own in a bamboo shack perched high above the nearest village while her neighbours below rebuild their homes.

Read more on IRIN

Global organization powered recovery and preparedness for 164,000 people

KATHMANDU, NEPAL – Since the massive April 2015 earthquake in Nepal, the global organization Mercy Corps has continued long-term recovery efforts, improved early warning systems and implemented disaster risk reduction strategies to help people rebuild from the devastation that impacted roughly 40 percent of the country’s population.

“In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, we provided emergency assistance to 135,000 men, women and children. But since then, we’ve been working side-by-side with communities to empower people to build back their lives and help them prepare for future crises,” says Sanjay Karki, Mercy Corps’ country director for Nepal.

With the majority of people living in rural areas and reliant on agriculture, the landslides caused by the 2015 quakes destroyed fields, hillsides and structures, wiping away livelihoods for thousands of families. Since the earthquake, Mercy Corps has employed more than 800 people in a cash-for-work program to build more than 50 gabions walls to control erosion and secure hillsides. The addition of bamboo, broom grass and other natural resources also stabilizes slopes. This has helped people confidently build back their homes and farms, despite ongoing vulnerability to landslides.

In addition to the gabion walls, Mercy Corps employed people to build 27 irrigation canals and 34 clean water points. Nearly 800 people participated in on-the-job mason training and in turn rebuilt more than 1,000 homes with earthquake-resistant materials and design. Mercy Corps also supported 23 local financial institutions to provide loans and saving opportunities to establish businesses, recover sources of income and build financial safety nets.

“The people of Nepal are incredibly resilient, but the country continues to face ongoing challenges to recovery,” says Karki. “With continued investment, we believe that communities will be prepared to weather future disasters and have the knowledge and tools they need to build an even brighter future.”

Join us and support Mercy Corps’ work in Nepal and elsewhere in the world