Lessons from the 2015 Nepal Earthquake Housing
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LESSONS FROM THE 2015 NEPAL EARTHQUAKE 4 HOUSING RECOVERY Maggie Stephenson April 2020 We build strength, stability, self-reliance through shelter. PAGE 1 Front cover photograph Volunteer Upinder Maharsin (red shirt) helps to safely remove rubble in Harisiddhi village in the Lalitpur district. Usable bricks and wood were salvaged for reconstruction later, May 2015. © Habitat for Humanity International/Ezra Millstein. Back cover photograph Sankhu senior resident in front of his house, formerly three stories, reduced by the earthquake to one-story, with temporary CGI roof. November 2019. © Maggie Stephenson. All photos in this report © Maggie Stephenson except where noted otherwise. PAGE 2 FOREWORD Working in a disaster-prone region brings challenges emerging lessons that offer insights and guidance for and opportunities. Five years after Nepal was hit by future disaster responses for governments and various devastating earthquakes in April 2015, tens of thou- stakeholders. Key questions are also raised to help sands of families are still struggling to rebuild their frame further discussions. homes. Buildings of historical and cultural significance Around the world, 1.6 billion people are living without that bore the brunt of the disaster could not be re- adequate shelter and many of them are right here in stored. Nepal. The housing crisis is getting worse due to the While challenges abound, opportunities have also global pandemic’s health and economic fallouts. Be- opened up, enabling organizations such as Habitat cause of Habitat’s vision, we must increase our efforts for Humanity to help affected families to build back to build a more secure future through housing. We look safer and better. Having worked in Nepal for over two forward to joining with other partners in building homes, decades, Habitat for Humanity continues to partner communities and hope. with families particularly as they drive their own home reconstruction process. With the commitment and support of the Government of Nepal and its develop- ment partners, we have seen progress in post-disaster recovery. Christy Stickney We wish to tap into the insights of Nepal’s work in National Director, Habitat for Humanity Nepal post-disaster housing recovery given the scale and complexity. With this report, we present four important Housing reconstruction after the earthquake Salme, Ghalegaun. © Habitat for Humanity Nepal. We build strength, stability, self-reliance through shelter. PAGE 3 ACRONYMS CBO Community Based Organization HRRP Housing Recovery and Reconstruction Platform IFRC International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (I)NGO (International) Non Government Organization IOM International Organisation of Migration NRA National Reconstruction Authority NSET National Society for Earthquake Technology -Nepal PDNA Post Disaster Needs Assessment PDRF Post Disaster Recovery Framework TWG Technical Working Group UN United Nations TERMINOLOGY Recovery: ‘The restoring or improving of livelihoods ‘technical assistance’ refers to measures which use knowl- and health, as well as economic, physical, social, cul- edge, practice or agreement, in particular through policies and laws, public awareness raising, training and education, tural and environmental assets, systems and activities, quality assurance, monitoring and evaluation. The term of a disaster-affected community or society, aligning ‘socio-technical assistance’ is used by some organizations with the principles of sustainable development and to emphasize the importance of people as well as technol- “build back better”, to avoid or reduce future disaster ogy in assistance activities. Some categories of activities are described in other publications as ‘institutional support’, 1 risk.’ UNDRR (2017) ‘community facilitation’, ‘capacity building’, ‘advisory services’ or ‘quality assurance’, usually reflecting the mandates of the assisting agencies. For the purpose of simplification, in In this document2: this document, the term ‘technical assistance’ is used as an ‘shelter’ refers to temporary accommodation arrangements umbrella term for all non-financial/ material assistance incor- (including tents, temporary structures, rented or hosted porating all expertise and all activities. Technical assistance accommodation), is not limited to engineering expertise, but encompasses ‘housing recovery’ refers to reconstruction, repair or up- social, communication, information management, business grading of permanent durable accommodation or dwellings development, legal, administrative and other expertise and affected by a disaster, as well as the restoring or improving assistance activities. of the means of housing production, including regulatory ‘housing system’ refers to the actors and institutions, in- systems, access to building materials, labor and finance. cluding their relationships and interactions, that are involved ‘financial assistance’refers to material or financial resourc- in the production, consumption (or use) and regulation of es provided to disaster affected households and commu- housing. The housing system is part of a wider societal nities to support their housing recovery including shelter, system; thus its different parts are influenced by broader housing repair and reconstruction. Financial assistance is external factors such as economic, sociocultural, political a transfer or grant from a donor to a recipient household or and demographic trends. Housing system outcomes, in turn, community and may take various forms including cash, tax have an impact on the broader societal system. relief, materials or full houses. Insurance is a financial service based on a mutualised system, but in the case of disasters, insurance payments may embody characteristics of financial assistance or transfers from the perspective of the receiving household. 1 UNDRR (2017) “2009 UNISDR Terminology on Disaster Risk Reduction”.https://www.undrr.org/terminology/recovery 2 See also: UN Habitat and AXA (2019) Supporting Safer Housing Reconstruction After Disasters. Planning and Implementing Technical Assistance at Large Scale. http://urbanresiliencehub.org/housingreconstruction/ PAGE 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword 3 Acronyms and Terminology 4 Introduction 7 Summary 8 Lesson 1 Housing Finance 12 Lesson 2 Urban 22 Lesson 3 Institutionalization 34 Lesson 4 Technical Assistance 42 Further themes for learning 50 Acknowledgements 52 We build strength, stability, self-reliance through shelter. PAGE 5 Reconstruction on small plot, storage of materials and preparation works on the main street Patan, February 2020. PAGE 6 INTRODUCTION Catastrophic and high-profile disasters present oppor- The focus is primarily on learning from the Nepal tunities for learning and change. They test the systems earthquake recovery for humanitarian and of humanitarian and reconstruction assistance and reconstruction assistance stakeholders, describing can indicate possible improvements as well as build systemic challenges and shortcomings in order to pressure or momentum to bring those improvements advocate for systemic change and improvements. about. Learning from deficiencies after the 2004 Indian The lessons are aimed primarily at the assistance Ocean tsunami led to improved coordination in subse- community or development partners nongovernmental quent responses. Successful experience from housing organizations, INGOs, U.N. agencies, development reconstruction after earthquakes in India (2001) and banks, bilateral agencies, donors) who have a Pakistan (2005) contributed to the increased the use responsibility to learn, improve their own policies of cash grant programs and promotion of risk reduction and practices and take steps to avoid repeating during recovery. miscalculations. After five years since the 2015 earthquake, extensive The report is intended as an initial contribution to experience has been gained in Nepal. This provides the discussions with Government, development partners, potential to inform continuing development and future civil society and affected communities as part of disaster response in Nepal, to inform other govern- the evolving initiatives to document, learn from and ments and communities facing the challenges of disas- communicate about the Nepal housing recovery ter recovery and to inform the policies and practices of experience. More data, research and debate are humanitarian assistance. needed on each topic to advance the analysis and recommendations. 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 We build strength, stability, self-reliance through shelter. PAGE 7 SUMMARY 1 Housing Finance 2 Urban Cash grants alone are insufficient as Urban recovery was neglected, a housing recovery financial strategy. again. How might urban authorities Additional measures are needed to and communities be better address affordability. supported? How to afford the timely reconstruction of private The 2015 Nepal earthquake is perceived as a rural housing is a recurring challenge after disasters, for disaster although the 100,000 houses destroyed in the affected households and communities and for urban areas is comparable to the number destroyed the Government. In Nepal almost 2 billion USD has in urban earthquakes in Kobe, Japan (1995) and already been channeled directly, through