During the dry season of 2021, Nepal experienced the worst fire in decades. For several days, the capital Kathmandu and other parts of the country were engulfed in a haze due to pollution and forest fires. With the onset of the monsoon in June, the Sindhupalchok district was hit by a catastrophic heavy mudslide that resulted in a loss of human lives, property damages/loss, and infrastructures.((Link)
Nepal’s population has surpassed 29 million (CBS, 2018), of which almost 80 % depend on agriculture-based livelihoods. Landslides and floods are common in Nepal because of the highly varied and complex climate, driven by the contrasting terrain and regional weather system. And with the changing climatic conditions, Nepal now faces increasing threats from climate-induced disasters that can have a devastating impact on human lives and the national economy. Nepal is ranked as the fourth most climate-vulnerable country globally and is highly exposed to water-related hazards like droughts.
Nepal’s government has been implementing more than fifty acts, policies, plans, work plans, and guidelines at different periods and set up multiple institutional mechanisms to respond to disaster-related activities. To counter unfortunate disasters on time and prevent such future events, the government has set up various institutional and legal arrangements to plan and manage disaster-related risk reduction and management activities. Nepal is one of the leading countries in Asia in formulating disaster management-related acts. In 1982, Nepal formulated Divine Disaster (Rescue) Act. (Link)
Natural Calamity Relief Act 2017 mandates Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA) is the lead agency responsible for immediate rescue and relief-related work and disaster preparedness activities. The disaster management division and its branches are directly under the MoHA. In addition to this, the National Emergency Operations Center, Security agencies are Nepal Army, Nepal Police and Armed Police Force, District Administration Office. More than 80 non-governmental organizations, including the Nepal Red Cross Society and the World Food Program, are active in disaster relief and rescue operations.
The Natural Calamity Relief Act 2017 and the Local Self Governance Act 2017 are the primary legal foundations in Nepal to respond to the disaster. To strategically handle all stages of the disaster management cycle, National Strategy for Disaster Risk Management (DRM) was formulated in 2009. The cabinet can declare a state of emergency in a large-scale disaster. In that situation, the UN humanitarian coordinator will activate the cluster system in Nepal. Natural Disaster Relief Fund shall remain active at the central, regional, district, and local as per the Disaster Rescue and Relief Standard 2007. And the institutional systems such as the Central Natural Disaster Relief Committee, the District Disaster Relief Committee, under the MoHA, and all five major public hospitals are also performing effectively.
In addition, Natural Disaster Relief Committee was established from the center to the local level as per the law, various agencies and institutions of the Government of Nepal can be taken as necessary institutional arrangements(Link). And recently, the government of Nepal has developed the National Policy for disaster risk reduction 2018 with the vision to contribute to sustainable development by making the nation safer, climate adaptive, and resilient from disaster risk.
MoHA will engage all the rapid emergency response agencies’ mechanisms to respond effectively in a disaster. Various post-disaster reports of mega-disasters, such as the earthquake of 2015, have also indicated that the search and rescue, damage assessment, information management, relief management, and rehabilitation had been problematic(Link).
Generally, the disaster is synonymous with loss, cost, and impacts to various sectors. As per the Ministry of Home Affairs Nepal, 2019, during 45 years (1971 to 2015), a total of 22372 disaster events have been recorded. This scenario reflects that Nepal is exposed to about 500 disaster-related events annually. From 1971 to 1980, annual loss by disaster averaged 301.6 million Nepalese Rupee (Rs.) with the highest Rs. 980 million in 1980. Moreover, the losses averaged Rs 592.6 million per annum from 1981 to 1990, with the heavy loss of Rs 2,522 million accounted in 1988 for the year of the earthquake. From 1991 onward, the losses have escalated with an average of Rs 10 billion per annum.(Link)
In addition, the State of the World’s Children 2019 report stated that 43 percent of children under five in Nepal were malnourished. Food security and disasters are closely related. Different natural disasters like floods, landslides, and droughts weaken food security, severely impact agricultural sector outcomes, and impact low-income families.
The government of Nepal has made efforts to formulate and implement various legal and policy provisions to create a conducive environment for disaster risk management; no significant reduction in disaster losses has been achieved yet. There is growing evidence that building community resilience to shocks is more cost-effective than humanitarian response. Evidence shows that for every $1 spent on prevention, $4 less needs to be spent on the response(Link). However, most of Nepal's disaster policies focus on response to relief efforts with a relatively minor focus on preparedness and mitigation.
Further, the Constitution of Nepal 2015 also guides the current landscape of disaster governance. As per the constitution, local governments shall do as much as they can on their own; provincial and federal governments shall provide backup or lead disaster risk reduction and management. However, there is no clarity on how roles and responsibilities are shared between local, provincial, and federal governments. So, all phases and areas of disaster risk reduction and management such as preparedness, response reconstruction, early warning systems, disaster prevention, and recent technology adaptation need to be developed, standardized, and mobilized in Nepal.
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