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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
“....
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 that safe shelter for affected villagers
should be the top priority, but it was difficult to deal with
the bureaucracy. Finally, the decision was made to allocate
funding to less controversial reconstruction sectors, such
as education, health and water facilities. Five months later,
the officer told us that the MoU with the Nepali...”
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Page 9
“...large humanitarian organizations was not forthcoming.
The events of the initial days following the earthquake
were discouraging for everyone in the village.
Despite these drawbacks, the community responded rather
quickly. In the first two months, by working together the
villagers managed to build a community center, a tempo-
rary school and over 100 temporary shelters. The initial
response of our organization after the earthquake was to
provide emergency relief, which included emergency cash,
funding for the new community building, rice and grain
distribution, emergency supplies and materials, such as
fertilizers, to ensure a normal planting season. These com-
bined efforts ensured that community members were safe
in such a way that they could have positive attitudes about
rebuilding their lives.
Moving Ahead in Uncertain Times
What became clear in the first few weeks after the earth-
quake was that it would be unlikely for large INGOs to offer
support to Katunge Village. At the same time...”
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Page 11
“...procedures, delays,
and negative responses from reconstruction authorities,
discouraged many NGOs like ours from continuing to con-
tribute to the post-earthquake revitalization effort.
Two years have now passed since the earthquake hit Nepal
and since we first started to contribute to its revitalization,
we have helped to build 27 earthquake resistant houses, one
temporary school, one community center, one multi-pur-
pose education center and seven earthquake resistant
classrooms. We still have funding left to build a few more
houses, but it is difficult to plan what further steps we can
take due to the lack of government support, complicated
bureaucratic processes and changing attitudes among the
villagers who are largely affected by the shifting sands of
the State’s policy. As a result, we also cannot do additional
fundraising because of our precarious position.
Most families who received the steel frames have now
completed their houses. In the meantime, many other
families have received...”
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