Reviving local economic activities and resuming basic public services, along with an accelerated implementation of reconstruction projects, will be critical to make up for the setback on poverty reduction caused by the April 25 earthquake and its aftershocks.Two months after the catastrophic 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Nepall, the government and development partners including ADB are now publishing the definitive report on the tremor’s impact.The executive summary and Volume A of the Post Disaster Needs Assessment, or PDNA is already out, and we are still awaiting Volume B.

Information from the full set of reports, including a part of the aid pledged during the reconstruction conference, will feed into the government’s budget for next year expected to be announced by July 15.The PDNA says the earthquake lowered GDP growth by over 1.5 percentage points from an estimate of 4.6% in a no-earthquake scenario in fiscal year 2015 (which ends 15 July 2015). —blogs.adb.org/blog