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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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“...Disaster Governance and Challenges in a Rural Nepali
Community: Notes from Future Village NGO
Lai Ming Lam
Varun Khanna
Rob Kuipers
More than two years after the 2015 earthquakes
devastated Nepal, Katunge village in Dhading
district, Nepal, remained as destroyed as it was
right after the earthquake. While the villagers
were rather hopeful about rebuilding their
houses and lives during the immediate relief
effort in which we engaged, one month 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...”
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“...since our last visit, just a few months ago. While
the villagers were rather hopeful about rebuilding their
houses and lives when we met them one month after the
earthquake, now only a few are confident that they will
ever rebuild their homes. This is a description of our latest
trip to Katunge village and several other places in Nepal in
September 2016.
Having been involved for years with a grassroots Non-
Governmental Organization (NGO) called Future Village,
we decided to provide emergency relief and establish
a reconstruction project in our project area, Katunge
village, in Dhading district.1 While prior to the earthquake
our NGO mainly focused on providing free education
and health care to the most disadvantaged families in
the village, our efforts after the earthquake focused on
supporting and assisting all affected families. Since the
earthquake we have made several visits to Nepal to con-
tribute to the project and to study the post-earthquake
situation. During our trips, we have...”
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“...fuel crisis; tourism took a massive hit because of this
double crisis. High transportation costs also limited recon-
struction progress as much reconstruction work had to be
suspended. Facing the increasing social turmoil and politi-
cal uncertainty, many NGOs decided to finish their disaster
relief work in Nepal earlier by December 2015 and gave up
the long-term recovery and reconstruction projects.
Little Gets Done Without a Reconstruction Policy
Effective reconstruction policy must go hand in hand with
good governance, which has been clearly discussed in the
literature on disaster governance. Empirical examples
indicate that effective coordination between the State and
NGOs helps to overcome the relief and recovery challenges
to those resource-poor countries (e.g. the earthquake in
Turkey on August 17,1999). Civil society’s involvement
strengthens the community’s resilience to future disasters
(e.g. the earthquakes in Sichuan on May 12, 2008 and on
April 20, 2013). Disasters can also transform...”
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“...houses being rebuilt the year after the earthquake.
Apart from the delayed reconstruction policy, this recon-
struction strategy fails to respond to local complexities.
Equality is the most 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...”
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“...shortage, and immediate assistance from the
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...”
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“...Professor of Anthropology at
Osaka University. She earned her PhD in Anthropology from
the University of Adelaide, Australia. She has been carrying
out research on the welfare impact of conservation-led
displacement on local communities, particularly in Nepal,
since 2002. Over the past 11 years she had dedicated her
life to improving the livelihoods of rural populations, and
she is the founder of Future Village Nepal. When the 2015
earthquake hit rural Nepal, her NGO not only provided
emergency relief, but also implemented long-term disaster
recovery and reconstruction projects.
Varun Khanna is a scholar with interests in Education,
Globalization and Development at the School of Human
Sciences at Osaka University, and a European Commission
fellow with a concurrent position at the Universitat
Autonoma de Barcelona, University of Amsterdam, and
University of Oslo. He is also part of the project panel for The
Chance Initiative and Future Village, NGOs in Nepal. He...”
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“...toll.html> (Accessed on May 12, 2017).
Rigby, Jennifer. 2016. Nepal Earthquake Anniversary:
One Year on, Not One Home Rebuilt by Government.
Telegraph, April 25, 2016 (Accessed on November 15,
2016).
Save the Children. 2016. One Year on from the
Nepal Earthquakes: Three Million People Still
Live Without Permanent Shelter as New Report
Reveals Some Marginalized Groups Missed Out on
Relief. < https://www.savethechildren.net/article/
one-year-nepal-earthquakes-three-million-people-still-
without-permanent-shelter-new-report> (Accessed on
August 10, 2016).
Thapa, Surenda. 2016. Impacts of an Earthquake in
Tourism in Kathmandu, Nepal. Bachelor dissertation,
Laurea University of Applied Sciences, Degree Programme
in Tourism,
(Accessed on April 5, 2017).
The Asia Foundation. 2016a. Independent Impacts...”
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