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Nepal

Nepal: National Disaster Preparedness Baseline Assessment - A data-driven tool for assessing risk and building lasting resilience

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

PDC’s National Disaster Preparedness Baseline Assessment (NDPBA) is more than just an assessment; it’s a sustainable system for understanding, updating, accessing, and applying critical risk information in decision making. The NDPBA provides the necessary tools, scientific data, and evidence-based practice to effectively reduce disaster risk – informing decisions at the national and sub jurisdictional levels. The NDPBA includes a Risk and Vulnerability Assessment (RVA) which examines several components of risk including hazard exposures, vulnerability, and coping capacity. These findings are further reviewed through the lens of PDC’s unique Disaster Management Analysis (DMA). The DMA contextualizes the RVA and guides recommendations designed to increase resilience and reduce disaster risk.

PDC worked in partnership with the Nepal Ministry of Home Affairs – National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Agency (NDRRMA) to integrate national priorities and stakeholder feedback throughout the process. Findings of this analysis were compiled into a Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Plan offering practical actions to be taken over a five-year period. The NDPBA provides Nepal with the essential tools and data for disaster risk monitoring while aligning recommended actions with the United Nations Development Goals and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030.

The NDPBA was conducted while the Government of Nepal was challenged with the still ongoing recovery from the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake and the effects of climate change especially with torrential rains and associated floods and landslides, and the Global COVID Pandemic. These events presented challenges and opportunities in helping to understand and actively observe the capabilities of Nepal’s disaster management structure. The NDPBA was funded by the United States Government through the United States Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) and conducted in coordination with United States Embassy in Kathmandu. Although the NDRRMA was PDC’s in-country partner during this project, PDC also developed relationships and data-sharing agreements with other agencies and organizations working in Nepal that supported the data gathering and vetting process.

To access all findings, recommendations, and data (tabular and spatial), developed for this analysis, please visit the PDC’s DisasterAWARE platform at https://disasteraware.pdc.org/ .