Post-Earthquake Urban Housing Recovery in Nepal: Challenges & Recommendations (To Contribute Towards Developing an Urban Recovery Strategy)

Nepal was struck by an earthquake of 7.6 magnitude on 25 April 2015, followed by multiple aftershocks - the strongest earthquakes to hit the country in 80 years, causing widespread damage to life, shelter and livelihoods. Hundreds of thousands of buildings, including 1,046,019 private houses, were damaged, with data showing that around 40% of the damage occurred in urban municipalities. In 2016, the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) was formed with the mandate to lead the reconstruction efforts of damaged structures in a sustainable, resilient and planned manner.

As a first step to extend support for housing recovery, Partnership Agreement (PA) is signed between beneficiaries and local government. It is remarkable that as of January 2021, within a short time span of just five years, more than three quarters (77%) of the households who had signed the PA, have completed reconstruction, and many are well underway. This achievement can be attributed to a coordinated recovery response comprising NRA's tranche-based financial grant support, the extensive mobilization of engineers and capacity building of masons, the untiring recovery facilitation efforts of social mobilizers, an effective grievance redressal mechanism, and a comprehensive Socio-technical Assistance (STA) package.