On April 25 and 12 May 2015 Nepal suffered two high magnitude earthquakes that caused wide scale damage to rural and urban homes, schools, public buildings, heritage sites, other physical infrastructure and livelihoods. A post-disaster needs assessment (PDNA) was carried out in 2015, and updated in 2019, which assessed economic losses to be USD 9.4 Billion. Thirty-two districts were affected by the earthquake (out of 77), nearly 9000 people were killed, and over 22,000 injured. The National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) was subsequently established in December 2015 and empowered to manage the reconstruction and recovery process, and to oversee coordination of reconstruction works undertaken by other government agencies, international development partners, I/NGOs, donors, civil society organisations, local governments, private sector actors and volunteers. This coordination ensured that Nepal remains on track to build back better in a sustainable, inclusive and disaster resilient manner.
On June 25 2015, the International Conference on Nepal’s Reconstruction (ICNR) was held to garner economic and moral support and solidarity from the international community. Donor countries pledged $4.4 billion in aid for the recovery and reconstruction efforts. On May 12 2016, a Post-Disaster Recovery Framework (PDRF) was established as a global action plan to guide, track and monitor reconstruction activities and their progress.
Since the earthquake, there have been tremendous changes in the reconstruction context. Significant events have included the restructuring of the NRA itself (incorporating previously externally-based Central and District-level Project Implementation Units of other Government of Nepal's Line Agencies (i.e. Ministry of Health, Education, Home Affairs and Local Government, Urban Development, and Tourism and Civil Aviation – now all themselves restructured under the new national level political restructuration); national level elections; the establishment of a federal system with three tiers of government, and the consequential establishment of MoUs between NRA and the 282 earthquake-affected municipalities, based on the devolution of reconstruction functions and powers.
