Kathmandu, January 11

The Chinese government has partnered with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Nepal to provide $4 million to support recovery efforts in Nepal’s Tarai region affected by one of the worst floods in recent history.

The assistance provided under the framework of the Chinese South-South Cooperation Assistance Fund, will reach 31,800 households in Sunsari, Saptari, Sarlahi, Dhanusha, Mahottari, Rautahat and Parsa districts of Provinces 1 and 2, as per a media release.

This assistance comes in response to the extensive damage and displacement caused by the 2017 floods in the country’s south.

In August last year, the Tarai experienced the heaviest rainfall recorded in the past 60 years, resulting in widespread flooding across 35 districts, claiming the lives of 134 people, destroying over 43,000 houses, partially damaging 192,000 houses, and displacing tens

of thousands of people. Over 80 per cent of land in the southern Tarai region was inundated. A post-flood assessment conducted by the Nepal government found that 1.7 million people were affected by the disaster.

The project, funded by China and implemented by UNDP, will work in close coordination with Nepal government’s Flood Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Project housed under the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA), through which the recovery package was finalised and beneficiary households were identified.

At the field level, the project will collaborate with newly-elected governments in carrying out the distribution of a package of non-food items, which includes shawls, blankets, cooking utensils, an insecticide-treated bed net, a clean cooking stove, a water filter and hygiene kits, the release adds.

To ensure efficiency and transparency of the distribution process, UNDP is using a mobile app, developed with technical support from Microsoft that enables project staff to work seamlessly through multiple distribution channels and track the progress against set targets, using a unified database of beneficiaries. Details of individual households are recorded in the system and the heads of the households are provided with a QR card, which they must present when collecting their packages at the nearest distribution centre.

“We trust these packages of essential non-food items will help flood victims resume their livelihoods and recover rapidly from the disaster,” the release has quoted UNDP Country Director Renaud Meyer as saying.