4 Lessons from the 2015 Nepal Earthquake Housing Recovery

After five years since the 2015 earthquake, extensive experience has been gained in Nepal. This provides the potential to inform continuing development and future disaster response in Nepal, to inform other governments and communities facing the challenges of disaster recovery and to inform the policies and practices of humanitarian assistance.

This report presents four potential areas of learning, framed as four lessons, identified from experience and discussions in Nepal. They are limited to housing and settlement recovery and organized under four broad themes: 
1) Housing Finance
2) Urban 
3) Institutionalization 
4) Technical Assistance

The focus is primarily on learning from the Nepal earthquake recovery for humanitarian and reconstruction assistance stakeholders, describing systemic challenges and shortcomings in order to advocate for systemic change and improvements. The lessons are aimed primarily at the assistance community or development partners nongovernmental organizations, INGOs, U.N. agencies, development banks, bilateral agencies, donors) who have a responsibility to learn, improve their own policies and practices and take steps to avoid repeating miscalculations.