Project Duration: November 2017 – May 2018. 

A 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck central Nepal on 25 April 2015, causing more than 8,700 deaths and 25,000 injuries as well as damaging properties and assets worth around $7 billion. A Post‐ Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA) estimated a reconstruction needs amounting to approximately   $6.7   billion.   The   earthquake   sequence   destroyed 490,000 houses; mostly traditional mud‐brick and mudstone  houses built and occupied by the rural poor, and rendered another 265,000 houses  at least  temporarily  uninhabitable.  The  largest  single  need identified   in   the   PDNA   was   housing   and  human  settlements, accounting for $3.27 billion (or almost half of the total needs). In a response to the damages caused by the earthquake, the Government of Nepal (GoN) has undertaken a host of plans and actions, particularly addressing housing. It has established the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) under an Act of Parliament, shouldering the overall responsibility of  policy  formulation,  providing  guidance,  planning, coordination and oversight of the Housing Reconstruction Program (HRP). During distribution of relief packages, a quick assessment of housing damage was carried out. In order to have a technically sound IT based exercise, the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) conducted a door‐to‐door assessment of the damages to private houses in the effected    districts    through    an    Earthquake    Household  Damage Characteristics survey.

Following the earthquake, the Bank began providing advice and support to  the  GoN  on  how  to  consider   and   design   reconstruction   and recovery efforts.  The Bank  has demonstrated global  and regional experience in post‐disaster housing reconstruction and social protection ‐ in such countries as Pakistan, India, Haiti, the Philippines, and Indonesia ‐ and is well positioned to bring its expertise and experience to support GoN through recovery and reconstruction