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“...Disaster Governance and Challenges in a Rural Nepali Community:
Notes from Future Village NGO
Acknowledgements
We wish to acknowledge the financial support provided by Osaka University for this research project.
Furthermore^ we gratefully appreciate government officials; NGOs workers; scholars to share their disaster
relief and recovery experiences with us. Finally we are very grateful to the many villagers in our research area
who shared their views on; and experiences of; hope and hopelessness in post-earthquake time.
This perspectives is available in HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies:
http:/ / digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya/vol37/iss2/11...”
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“...after the
earthquake, now only a few are confident that
they will ever rebuild their homes.
In this article, we describe the reconstruction
progress, followed by a critique of why the
reconstruction progress has been so slow. We
conclude with reflections on reconstruction
challenges interwoven into the context of
our NGO experience. During our trips to the
region, we have observed and experienced the
difficulties people and organizations are facing
in the reconstruction process. We interviewed
government officials and NGOs that have been
involved in reconstruction, which helped us to
gain insight into broader perspectives on the
community or family-level realities that hinder
rebuilding and community revitalization. We
conclude that by mobilizing earthquake victims,
it is possible to rebuild houses and revitalize
communities. Conversely, little progress can be
expected in Nepal's rebuilding as long as poor
governance and poor coordination between
major reconstruction actors prevails.
Keywords:...”
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“...by the government
(Rigby 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...”
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“...rebuilt by the Nepali government or NGOs;
however, no clear plan had been implemented for rebuild-
ing the remaining classrooms. Reconstruction of the health
facilities has also been slow, with construction only start-
ing for 444 of the 1,080 destroyed health facilities by the
end of September 2016, and currently only 200 facilities
have been reopened. At the same time, construction has
only just begun for 49 of the 750 damaged cultural heri-
tage sites, making problems worse for an 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...”
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“...important reconstruction principle
for the Nepali government’s post-earthquake response.
An unjust reconstruction policy could further escalate the
tense ethnic divisions and anxieties following the earth-
quake, therefore the Nepali government has enforced a
limit on housing grants, and to avoid duplication of relief
and reconstruction efforts it has retained all decision-mak-
ing power for reconstruction projects. Influenced by the
approaches used by the State Government of Gujarat to
rebuild following the 2001 earthquake in India, and the
advice from the World Bank, the government of Nepal
decided an owner-driven approach would be the most
effective and culturally sensitive way to rebuild private
houses (National Planning Commission 2015). However,
what government officials promote as equality, in reality,
does not mean equality for everyone, especially the
78 HIMALAYA Fall2017...”
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“...to rebuild houses by themselves. However, the
hope for getting more and more housing grants makes
everyone take a wait-and-see attitude and solely depend
on government. This is one of reasons for the severe delay
in housing reconstruction.” At the end of September 2016,
the NRA announced that over 80% enrolled beneficiaries
(361,575 out of 455,710) received the first housing grant
installment. According to our observations in the Dhading
district (one of the 11 most earthquake-devastated
districts), even though most villagers had received the
housing grant, active rebuilding had not yet commenced.
Some villagers told us they used the money for food
purchases and festival celebration. Many villagers also
mentioned that they did not have sufficient knowledge to
build earthquake-resilient houses.
Government: "NGO Fund is Also a Government Fund"
The direct involvement of NGOs and INGOs in housing
reconstruction is very rare. Most NGOs and INGOs in
Nepal have allocated their funds to public i...”
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“...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 govern-
ment was finally signed. According to the MoU, the NGO
would provide financial support to 8,000 households in
four districts to rebuild their houses and the government
had the right to decide...”
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“...months that followed, we established partner-
ships with several organizations and produced a strategy
to rebuild earthquake-resistant houses in Katunge. In
short, we designed an earthquake resistant steel frame,4
which could be distributed among the affected families.
Architects and engineers from our partner organizations
would provide free training to the community on how to
erect the steel frames, the necessary foundation for the
frames, and how to build the rest of the house according
to government regulations. Apart from the steel frame,
the materials to build the walls, roofs and floors could be
sourced from the surrounding environment and the house
could be built in accordance with cultural and traditional
knowledge and customs.
Meanwhile, our organization took on the responsibility
of mobilizing local people, leading the project and partly
financing it through our global donor network. Several
fundraising campaigns had already helped us to raise suf-
ficient donation funds to finance...”
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“...It was around this time that the government had
also announced the amount of money the earthquake-af-
fected families would be entitled to and the criteria for
receiving such support. Villagers split into two groups:
some preferred to rebuild their houses faster and requested
we order more steel frames, but most chose to wait for the
government’s support. We also noticed that most of the
villagers did not understand the conditions for receiving
such government support. They were under the impres-
sion that the government would give them a sum of money
upfront as the first installment and were unfamiliar with the
condition that they had to rebuild their house in accordance
with the building codes to receive the next installment of
support. Nevertheless, 20 families eventually decided to
accept the support from our organization; the community
selected those families to receive steel frames in April 2016.
Our organization also approached different government
officials, and despite their promise...”
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“...documented the post-earth-
quake reality of a rural project area involving a grassroots
NGO. We have highlighted some of the challenges of
this project, and have interwoven several recommenda-
tions into our discussion for future policy-makers. Our
reconstruction experience clearly demonstrates that the
dominance of government control, bureaucracy, lack of
long-term commitment among NGOs as well as the villag-
ers’ wait-and-see attitudes all undermine the capacity of
the community’s ability to rebound. In a resource-poor
village like Katunge, civic participation from villagers,
NGOs and private sectors are the key for post-disaster
recovery. We suggest that the Nepali government should
have a more encouraging framework to govern NGOs and
an attitude to let the NGOs do what they need to do, so that
they can mobilize others to help the local residents rebuild
their communities.
The more time passes without things being done, the
fewer opportunities Nepali people will have to rebuild
their homes...”
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“...University, Japan. He recently
completed fieldwork on education in post-disaster Nepal
and is a part of The Chance Initiative by Future Village, a
Japanese NGO.
The authors wish to acknowledge the financial support provided
by Osaka University for this research project Furthermore, they
gratefully appreciate government officials, NGO workers, and
scholars who shared their disaster relief and recovery experiences.
Finally, the authors are very grateful to the many villagers in the
research area who shared their views on, and experiences of, hope
and hopelessness in post-earthquake time.
Endnotes
1. On March 10, 2017, the Nepali government has adopted
a 744 local body system, fulfilling the requirement of the
new constitution of Nepal that was established in 2015.
All old municipalities and villages (of which there were
more than 3,900) were restructured to total only 744 new
Municipalities and Villages. Katunge village, together with
Marpak and Semjong, have been merged...”
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“...2, 2016).
Chamlee-Wright, Emily and Daniel M. Rothschild. 2007.
Disastrous Uncertainty: How Government Disaster Policy
Undermines Community Rebound. Mercatus Policy Series,
Mercatus Center, George Mason University, No. 9. (Accessed on September 2,
2016).
Dhakal, Tek. Nath. 2007. Challenges of Civil Society
Governance in Nepal. Journal of Administration and Governance
2(1): 61-73
(Accessed on November 2, 2016).
Jaiswal, Pramod. ed. 2016. Constitution of Nepal: Evolution,
Development and Debates. New Delhi: G.B. Books.
Jalai, Rita. 2002. Civil Society and the State: Turkey After the
Earthquake. Disasters 26 (3): 120-139.
HRRP. 2017. Nepal Earthquake 2015: Housing Reconstruction
Two Years On. Housing Recovery and Reconstruction
Platform. Version 1.
National Planning Commission. 2015. Post Disaster Needs
Assessment. Government of Nepal. (Accessed...”
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