Disaster Risk Management

UNDP Intervention on Disaster Risk Management

UNDP in Nepal has had an engagement in this sector for over two decades now. This is perhaps one of the longest among all the country offices in the region. Nepal itself had come out with a Natural Calamity Relief Act as early as in 1982. One of the key achievements of the CO has been to keep disaster risk reduction in the fore front of the development debate as a pre-disaster engagement, even when the global attention was drawn towards other countries in the region that were plagued by major natural disasters. Moreover, the decade long conflict in the country has given rise to both greater need and challenges for disaster reduction related programming in Nepal. The duality of natural and man-made crises has highlighted the urgency for greater support to the vulnerable communities to ensure safer lives and livelihoods. It is this conflict-disaster nexus that makes Nepal's case stronger for consideration in the CPR practice area.

Thematic areas of engagement of UNDP Nepal in this sector

• Integration of Disaster Risk Reduction in development
  
  
• Strengthening National Capacity for Risk Reduction
  
  
• Early Recovery

Some of the key engagement

• First National Action Plan on Disaster Management prepared in 1996.
• National Report on Disaster Management presented at the World Conference on Disaster Reduction in Kobe, Japan in January 2005.
• Sectoral Working Groups (currently in Health, Logistics and Food & Agriculture) formed in 1993 for effective disaster preparedness and response.
• DesInventar database established of disaster events in Nepal of more than three decades (1971-2003)
• Building codes guidelines developed for hazard resistant construction as early as 1994.
• DP-Net -A network of all key players in the disaster management sector established (1994) and supported
• First ever District Disaster Management Action Plans prepared for five most hazard prone districts.
• Integration of disaster indicator in the Poverty monitoring assessment system (PMAS) (formulated by the National Planning Commission).
• Community level models for disaster mitigation created in most vulnerable districts
• The Nepal CO has made Natural Disaster Reduction one of the key outcome under its Multi Year Funding Framework (MYFF)