Kathmandu, October 12

The government has signed agreements worth $3.07 billion out of the total commitment of $3.43 billion from the development partners for post-earthquake reconstruction.

According to the International Economic Cooperation Coordination Division (IECCD), under the Ministry of Finance, the government has signed agreements with the development partners as per their pledge to support the country’s post-quake reconstruction drive.

After signing the agreements, the government will be able to mobilise the funds for the reconstruction activities. Some of the development partners have been executing the projects by themselves under their grant assistance. The government has inked pacts to mobilise grant assistance worth $1.56 million and loan assistance worth $1.51 billion, as per the IECCD.

China is the largest grant provider for the post-earthquake reconstruction. The government is going to mobilise $766.93 million in grant aid from the northern neighbour. In terms of total assistance —  both loan and grant — southern neighbour India is the largest donor. The government will be mobilising $250 million as grant and $750 million as soft loan from India under its line of credit facility to Nepal.

However, the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) had said that the country’s post-earthquake reconstruction requires total budget of $9.38 billion. This means there will be shortfall of around $3.94 billion for the country’s reconstruction even after taking the donor’s pledge and the government’s resource allocation into account.

Post-earthquake reconstruction has been categorised under six major sectors, namely, housing, public buildings, cultural heritage, education, health, water and sanitation and livelihoods. The NRA has said that in the education sector, reconstruction of schools may face huge resource gap as there is low allocation from the government.

Nevertheless, the NRA has said that the post-disaster recovery framework (PDRF) had estimated high resources than the actual loss in few sub-sectors and NRA has been calculating actual cost of reconstruction.

“PDRF has estimated that reconstruction of monasteries alone would cost Rs eight billion, which is very high,” a high-level source at NRA said, adding, “We are revisiting the estimation, which may bring down the reconstruction cost of the ravaged structures.”

Support received

Development Partner

Agreement signed

Grant 

Loan

India

$250m

$750m

Asian Development Bank

$25m

$200m

World Bank

$300m

China

$766.93m

Japan

$32.94m

$214.13m

USA

$159.82m

European Union

$118.37m

United Kingdom

$165.5m

International Monetary Fund

$50m

Germany

$34m

Finland

$1.12m

South Korea

$8.4m