The Emergency Housing Reconstruction Project (EHRP) funded by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has been successfully completed earlier from the targeted completion date.
On this occasion, a closing ceremony was organised virtually today, according to a press note issued by the development partner. “The ceremony was attended by National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) chief executive officer Sushil Gyewali, NRA secretary Suresh Acharya, ambassador of Japan to Nepal Masamichi Saigo, JICA chief representative Yumiko Asakuma and several other high ranking officials from NRA, Central Level Project Implementation Units and District Level Project Implementation Units,” the press note reads, adding that the EHRP is a Japanese ODA loan project amounting Japanese Yen 12 billion (equivalent to about Rs 12 billion). “Main objective of EHRP was to restore and improve the living condition of the victims of the devastating earthquake of 2015, by reconstructing the destroyed and damaged houses using an adequate seismic standard of construction.”
With the principle of Build Back Better (BBB), EHRP provided technical assistance to more than 95,000 housing reconstruction beneficiaries in the target areas of Gorkha and Sindhupalchok districts. The EHRP also provided financial assistance to the government for providing housing grant. The housing grant was provided to about 34,000 beneficiaries who successfully completed earthquake-resilient houses.
As of November 2020, almost 90 per cent of beneficiaries have already completed their house construction in JICA’s target area. The Community Mobilisation Programme (CMP) was one of key factor for success of housing reconstruction which optimized the power of community and promoted mutual support, the press note claimed, adding that it also created job opportunity to over 500 mobile masons, who were instrumental in assisting the house owners for reconstruction.
Speaking on the occasion, Japanese envoy Saigo recalled his field visit to EHRP area, where the mobile mason, house owner, technical support staff and the whole community were working together in a well
organised way and shared his observation on the reason behind of completing the project successfully before the original schedule.
Likewise, chief representative of JICA Nepal Asakuma highly appreciated NRA's initiatives of documenting the learning from reconstruction and passing it to the new agency responsible for DRR, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority for institutionalization of the practical learning.
On the occasion, NRA chief executive Gyewali highly acknowledged the CMP, which was highly effective to synergise the well-grounded Nepali culture of mutual help saying that the CMP not only was instrumental in expediting reconstruction but also in strengthening the social capital of community cohesion.
Housing reconstruction will still continue to materialise leave-no-one-behind, even though EHRP funded by JICA is closed, the press note added.
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