Ensuring No One is Left Behind After Nepal’s Earthquake
Three years later, reconstruction efforts build a foundation for a more inclusive future
Three years ago, a devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Nepal, killing nearly 9,000 people, damaging or destroying hundreds of thousands of homes and leaving millions without shelter.
Marginalized groups were disproportionately affected by the quake. Fifty-five percent of victims were women — many from female-headed households, and 41 percent were either from lower caste groups, such as Dalits, or Janajati indigenous ethnic groups.
As USAID supports Nepal to rebuild stronger, we strive to address the unique needs of women and marginalized communities to ensure that these groups don’t get left behind during reconstruction.
Archana Tamang is a USAID-funded gender and social inclusion (GESI) advisor who works with Nepal’s National Reconstruction Authority — a government body established after the earthquake to lead reconstruction.
With her infectious smile and boundless energy, Archana became a strong advocate for vulnerable populations from day one. Her motivation to become the voice for Nepal’s marginalized individuals stemmed from her personal story as a victim of gender-based violence.
Born in Dharan in Eastern Nepal, Archana was married off to a man from a Nepali-speaking part of India at the age of 17. She immediately became pregnant and delivered a child weeks before her 18th birthday.
After being physically, emotionally and psychologically abused by her husband for five years, she escaped back to Nepal with her young daughter. From that point, she began working to advance GESI issues in the region.
During the first earthquake in 2015, Archana was traveling to Afghanistan for work; but the quake “was a real wake up call.” She returned to Nepal immediately, promising never to leave the country for work again. Instead, she vowed to work to rebuild Nepal.
The opportunity to advise a key Government of Nepal agency on how to better respond to the needs of women and marginalized groups arose at the perfect time. “The GESI section [of the National Reconstruction Authority] had just been formed,” she said. “I prayed for this position. I didn’t pray for myself, but for the opportunity to transform Nepal.” Now, with USAID’s support, she is doing just that.
While the National Reconstruction Authority had already committed to address the needs of vulnerable people, it lacked a formal plan to ensure that recovery and reconstruction efforts would meaningfully engage marginalized groups.
Therefore, in her role, Archana aimed to develop a bottom-up, evidence-based GESI action plan to incorporate gender and social inclusion into reconstruction efforts. She wanted to both empower women and ensure that they were able to earn a living.
Since Nepal was transitioning to a federal structure and decentralizing authority to the local level, Archana organized five workshops to bring together civil society and National Reconstruction Authority officials to discuss how to address GESI issues at each administrative level and establish buy-in and ownership.
“Just hearing [the National Reconstruction Authority] discuss gender and social inclusion was a breakthrough. Yes, these ideas are in our constitution, but these concepts haven’t been internalized by society yet,” Archana stated.
The creation and implementation of the GESI action plan was well timed to align with the recent changes in Nepal’s governance structure. Under the new system, the recent elections reserved two of five seats in local government for women — including one woman from a marginalized caste — and required one of two candidates for mayor and deputy mayor in each municipality to be female.
The historic elections brought 14,000 women into local level government. Due to this, the National Reconstruction Authority agreed to fund the plan as part of its budget, recognizing the opportunity to leverage local level champions for greater inclusion.
With unequal access to reconstruction resources figuring prominently in election campaigns, these newly elected women and representatives of socially excluded groups now have the opportunity to work with the National Reconstruction Authority to ensure that their constituents are not left behind.
Using the GESI Action Plan, the National Reconstruction Authority is working with local government officials to mitigate the challenges faced by vulnerable groups in the reconstruction process, such as allowing survivors to access resources even though they may not have citizenship cards or land entitlement documents, and identifying cost-saving measures to make housing reconstruction more affordable.
The plan also works to accelerate the social and economic recovery of marginalized groups by building their knowledge and skills in small business, fair trade and marketing to increase their economic opportunities and resilience to future disasters.
In many vulnerable communities, the National Reconstruction Authority’s support is bolstered by USAID projects, which train masons, engineers and households on safe building practices; reconstruct critical public infrastructure, such as health clinics and schools; and increase household and community preparedness for future disasters.
With support from the National Reconstruction Authority and Archana’s continued advocacy for gender and social inclusion, Nepal has the opportunity to align itself with the democratic and inclusive vision in the country’s constitution.
“We have women in our history who were strong leaders. They were responsible for bringing change and democracy,” Archana says. With her help, Nepal is poised to build back stronger than before while advancing the role of margenelized households in society.
With USAID support, the Government of Nepal established the largest homeowner-driven housing reconstruction program in the world. USAID’s assistance — valued at over $190 million for earthquake relief and reconstruction — trained thousands in disaster-safe construction, rebuilt more than 60,000 homes using safer construction standards, and helped the government to accelerate the reconstruction effort and distribute over $827 million of housing grants for seismic-resistant homes.
About this Story
Kelly Knutson is a Presidential Management Fellow with USAID’s Asia Bureau, on rotation with USAID’s mission in Nepal. Andrew Golda works in the Disaster Risk Reduction, Reconstruction, and Resilience Office in USAID’s Nepal mission.
