The 2015 Gorkha Earthquake of 25 April and subsequent aftershocks led to the unprecedented loss of lives and properties in Nepal. Approximately 9,000 persons lost their lives, more than 22,300 persons got injured and more than 700,000 houses were damaged with millions of people affected. Additionally, more than 7,000 schools and 3,000 government buildings were collapsed. As mandated by law, National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) is leading overall reconstruction process in Nepal.
Nepal has adopted the Owner Driven Approach (ODA) in reconstruction where many partner organizations are supporting the earthquake affected families to reconstruct their houses by themselves. The government has provided financial and technical assistance to the earthquake affected families both in the urban and rural areas.
Until May 2018, 161116 houses have been rebuilt and 483141 are under construction. Among the 718986 beneficiaries signed with an agreement for a government grant in 14 earthquake most-hit districts and 17 least-hit districts, 710331 have received the first tranche of grant, 408029 have received the second tranche of grant and 138408 have received the third tranche of grant. According to NRA, out of 237085 registered grievances, 205584 have been redressed.
With the core funding support from United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Baliyo Ghar program is a five-year (October 2015–September 2020) Cooperative Agreement for Housing Reconstruction Technical Assistance implemented by National Society for Earthquake Technology-Nepal (NSET). This is a five-years (October 2015 – September 2020) program implemented in 3 districts out of 14 severely earthquake affected districts; Dolakha, Dhading and Nuwakot and also in one Municipality in Kathmandu. The Baliyo Ghar program is providing blanket technical assistance to the earthquake affected people conducting awareness and training activities to build seismically safer homes.
The program has two-fold goals:
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In shorter-term, the program aims at ensuring earthquake safer construction of all houses being reconstructed;
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For longer-term, the program aims to establish a system of disaster-resilient construction to achieve the goal of disaster-resilient communities in Nepal.
For this, there are 6 components of technical assistance:
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Assisting in policy making,
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Capacity building trainings,
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Community orientations,
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Mobile clinic,
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Awareness raising, and
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On-the Job Trainings
Baliyo Ghar has been supporting earthquake affected population to ensure safer and better reconstruction. Baliyo Ghar provided technical support to NRA in developing guidelines and procedures of grant disbursement, correction manual, retrofitting and other manuals along with physical and intellectual support during enrollment processes. The Baliyo Ghar program has completed Year III in September 2018. The program imparted knowledge, skills and awareness about earthquake resistant building construction technology to house owners and local masons. Furthermore, the program assisted government of Nepal and its related authorities to develop standard guidelines, norms and training curricula.
Accomplishments (until September 2018):
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107945 persons made aware on disaster resilient housing construction through orientation session
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38211 Houses constructed/benefited from door to door technical assistance
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2866 Government Officials trained
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394 Demonstration Training Models Developed
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902 Demonstration Model Houses built
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13912 Total Construction workforce trained
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139 Instructors trained for conducting training and awareness program
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635 Social Mobilizers trained
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Improved Policy: 5 Training Curricula developed for awareness and training programs, 12 Policy documents developed and in implementation.
Project outcomes:
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90% of houses reconstructed in engagement of at least one trained mason
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88% trained masons found continuing their profession after one year of mason training.
