Aid and Recovery in Post-Earthquake Nepal

On Monday, a 7.5-magnitude earthquake hit South Asia, its epicenter in northeastern Afghanistan, devastating many areas, killing hundreds and injuring thousands. Just six months ago, on April 25, in similarly difficult and remote terrain, a 7.8-magnitude quake struck Nepal. Thousands were killed, tens of thousands were injured, and hundreds of thousands of homes were damaged or destroyed. A second major earthquake struck shortly after.

Aid providers quickly responded. But developing effective plans for long-term, sustainable recovery after any disaster requires knowledge of the needs of the affected, how they evolve over time, and the effectiveness of aid in addressing these. Nepal now needs to plan for robust and durable recovery. Doing so effectively requires learning from post-disaster efforts to date: by assessing how effective the aid response has been; how the challenges that people in the earthquake zone face have changed since the initial days, and what challenges will likely emerge in the coming months. Today, The Asia Foundation released a new report, “Independent Impacts and Recovery Monitoring Nepal,” that combines findings from in-depth fieldwork and face-to-face interviews with 2,980 randomly selected respondents across 14 of 26 earthquake-affected districts, along with 298 ward leaders conducted around two months after the first quake. Together the finding in the report, the first part in a series, offer an assessment of the impacts of the earthquake and the response on local communities and their ability to recover.