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Page 4
“...2016). This left approximately three million people
without permanent shelter (Save the Children 2016). At
that time, most of these affected families were still living
in temporary shelter unsuitable for Nepal’s intense mon-
soons and cold winters. In some extreme cases, people
were even living in tents or had moved back into their
damaged houses (Basu 2016).
The slow reconstruction pace has been met with substan-
tial criticism both inside and outside Nepal, and many
organizations, including donors, have urged the Nepali
government to expedite the reconstruction and the
distribution of grants (Nikhil 2016). Despite this pressure,
the reconstruction progress only started to accelerate
in August 2016, when a campaign was undertaken to
finally distribute the reconstruction grant installment of
NRs. 50,000 to the affected families that had signed grant
agreements. This long-awaited installment was part of a
series of installments that the Nepalese government had
promised to grant and distribute...”
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Page 5
“...already suffering
tourism industry (National Reconstruction Authority
2016).2
The lack of progress strongly contrasts with the promises
made during the conference of donors held in June 2015.
During this conference, donor countries pledged nearly 4.1
billion USD for the long-term recovery of Nepal, a level of
commitment that surprised many, and covers just under
half of the 9.18 billion USD the Nepali government now
expects will be needed to rebuild the country. In return,
the Nepali government promised to establish a national
reconstruction authority that would centrally organize all
the reconstruction efforts and ensure they are carried out
expeditiously and fairly. Indeed, the government was able
to rapidly map the needs and damage in the immediate
aftermath of the earthquake and communicate those needs
to international donors, which was promising. This makes
it even more disappointing that the reconstruction prog-
ress has been slow, despite the availability of extensive
resources (Nikhil...”
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Page 8
“...expenses,
which is fair. However, this attempt to avoid corruption
and mismanagement in NGOs has resulted in many NGOs
simply giving up on their house rebuilding plans, or allo-
cating funds to other recovery activities. It is estimated
that less than 2% of the rebuilding of private houses will be
supported by non-governmental organizations.
The NGOs are very suspicious of the one-door recon-
struction approach in Nepal. Some NGOs are concerned
that they will not be able to be accountable to their
donors for donations that are managed by the Nepali
government. In March 2016, we visited one influential
NGO that had planned to help poor villagers rebuild their
houses, but had changed their plans when negotiations
with the government broke down. One of the reasons
these negotiations halted was that this NGO was asked
to rebuild the entire district, but the NGO simply did not
have the ability to do so. The NGO was concerned about
handing over donations to the government. The NGO
officer pointed out...”
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