Recovery to Resilience Program

Gorka Earthquake Recovery in Nepal

Program Locations: Kathmandu and Melamchi, Nepal
Project Duration: 2015- 2018

Target/Objectives

Demonstrate effective strategies for promoting recovery and building resilience that meet immediate and long-term needs of communities following the Gorkha (April and May 2015) earthquake in Nepal;
Contribute to the Global Resilience Partnership (GRP) and utilize the skills, knowledge, experience, and techniques emerging in the growing global community of researchers and professionals working on resilience building; and
Develop proposals and partnerships for a longer-term program to take activities demonstrated in this project to scale.

Project Overview

ISET-International and ISET-Nepal have collaborated on resilience-building in the wake of the 2015 Gorka Earthquake. A critical challenge for recovery from the earthquake was that when it occurred, Nepal was still in the process of reorganizing its government after the ten-year civil war. This reorganization means that institutional structures that are usually taken for granted in most contexts were not in place. Within this context, project partners have worked to explore and implement different ways to assist resilient recovery. After exploring many options, developing an integrated settlement land-use planning process proved to be most appropriate for the social and political context of the moment. Partners developed a land-use proposal for the local municipality of Melamchi, near Kathmandu, which was accepted by the local government and is in the process of being implemented. (updated Sep. 2018)