Nepal is a disaster-prone country — vulnerable to a number of manmade and natural calamities. Not less than 80% of the total population of Nepal live constantly under the potential danger of one or the other impending (or actual) calamity. Nepal is vulnerable to almost all kinds of disasters — natural and manmade except ones which are sea-borne.

Floods, landslides, lightning, cyclones, earthquakes, epidemics, cold waves, Loo (hot waves), fire, avalanches, glacier breaks, industrial pollution, and road accidents are some of the disasters which strike Nepal every year or in an interval of few years causing huge damage to both human lives, private and public property besides casting long term adverse impacts on social, economic and environmental levels. The scale and intensity of damage and destruction caused by these disasters exacerbate further due to unmanaged population rise, rapid urbanization, ecological destruction, sudden political upheavals, and others.

The latest Act (2017) calls for the cooperation of national and local authorities in the framework of the Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council in the case of natural disasters in Nepal.

Nepal is showing no tangible progress despite worldwide efforts to mitigate the effects of disasters at cross-continent level, Nepal’s international commitment in areas of disaster management, investment of both money and labor by the government as well as non-government organizations in disaster mitigation efforts, people’s participation and contributions from other stakeholders. This necessitates a review of all actions and plans related to disaster management (and mitigation) in Nepal.

Nepal is among the pioneers in Asia so far as framing laws on disaster management are concerned. Nepal had earlier framed Natural Calamity (Relief) Act, 2039 BS (1982). It was necessary to frame a new law by incorporating all the new perspectives, changes and experiences that the world has gone in these 35 years since 1982 in areas of disaster mitigation and management. The latest ‘Disaster Risk and Management Act, 2074 (2017)’ repeals and replaces the Natural Calamity Relief Act of 1982. The latest Act (2017) calls for the cooperation of national and local authorities in the framework of the Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council in the case of natural disasters in Nepal.

The Act focuses on protecting public life, public and private property, natural and cultural heritage, physical properties and minimizing the disaster risk. Nepal’s international commitment in areas of disaster risk reduction and its management (as per this Act) has not been satisfactory and the country is at the bottom in performance list of South Asian countries. The major inclusions and perspectival changes in areas of disaster management in the last three decades include disaster relief operations, disaster preparedness, disaster risk reduction and community resilience in face of vulnerable population amongst others. These changes in framing and designing effective, realistic and coordinated planning for disaster risk management have brought a paradigm shift in approach to disaster management activities across the world.

Concerned government agencies are still focusing on emergency response plan and a disaster recovery plan instead of disaster risk reduction and disaster management.

All the South Asian countries framed their respective disaster management laws and related councils to match with the highlighted points and conclusions of the World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction held in Kobe, Japan in 2005. Inspired by the conference, Sri Lanka went ahead to prepare a national roadmap for disaster risk reduction. After 10 years, another World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction was held in Sendai, Japan in 2015. Nepal missed out on bringing relevant changes in areas of disaster management as agreed upon in Sendai then.

Nepal has not yet created ‘the National Council on Disaster Risk Reduction and Management’ as per the provisions of ‘Disaster Risk and Management Act, 2074 (2017)’. It is a matter of both shock and surprise that why Nepal has dithered on setting up such a crucial council despite having committed to same in an international forum discussing ‘disaster’ and its management. This laxity and neglect on the part of the government of Nepal show the absence of political will on this issue. Concerned government agencies are still focusing on emergency response plan and a disaster recovery plan instead of disaster risk reduction and disaster management.

Though UN agencies, NGOs, government bodies and Red Cross have made a huge financial investment in programs and projects of disaster risk reduction and disaster management. However, these programs/projects are not operational in all the sectors and areas covering the entire population of Nepal except in few pockets at priority basis. It will not benefit Nepal unless disaster auditing at much wider level with the broad scope is taken up by classifying the administrative and geographical regions of Nepal depending upon the factors such as possible disaster vulnerabilities, risk reduction, and its management.

Effective execution of disaster risk reduction and management plans must be carried out at all the levels say provinces, metropolitan cities, sub-metropolitan cities, municipalities, and village councils. Another major challenge before Nepal is to arrange for trained human resources for handling disaster risk reduction and disaster management. The continuous upgradation of their skills equipped with the modern scientific application and related technologies is another requirement for efficient handling of all the phases of disaster risk reduction and management such as mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery.

Further improvement in technologies is to be brought about and advanced training as a result of the ongoing review of their efficacy in areas of disaster management is to be conducted.

Disaster risk reduction and management must have a friendly, considerate and sensitive approach to women, children, disabled and senior citizens. The study of disaster management has not yet been treated as high priority subject in Government agencies and other research centers. Nepal has its own peculiarities in the area of disaster risk reduction and management owing to its culture, physical topography, vulnerabilities, nature of disaster and resilience capacity compared to other countries. That is why we need Nepal-specific research in the area of disaster risk reduction and its management.

Only 40% population of Nepal lives in cities and urban areas of Nepal. Urbanities are considered to be more disaster-prone than those living in rural areas. For examples, earthquakes, flood, heat waves, pollution and spread of deadly diseases have a more deadly impact on urban localities with a high density of population and those living in slums. Further improvement in technologies is to be brought about and advanced training as a result of the ongoing review of their efficacy in areas of disaster management is to be conducted.

Nepal sorely lacks people’s participation in urban areas in areas of disaster risk reduction and management. The timely actions and interventions of local residents and local communities always count in disaster mitigation and its management. We need to change our thought that expects everything is done by the government and non-government organizations. Public awareness regarding disaster risks and its management must reach everyone – community, common people, politicians, and other decision makers.  Local level cooperation, coordination, and ongoing learning to improve upon in skills and technology regarding disaster management are vital components of ‘disaster risk reduction and management’.

The disaster management unit of SAARC is not that effective until now. There are disasters, effect of which be it direct or indirect (or both) cross the geographical boundary of a country making it urgent for neighboring and other countries to coordinate together at the official level for mitigating its effects. In view of impending or actual disaster(s), countries erect joint-action plan or institution for disaster risk reduction and management.  It is relevant to note here that institutions in areas of disaster management are of various nature in different countries such as Indonesia in the recovery phase of disaster, Sri Lanka in framing the law on disaster and its implementation, Pakistan for disaster risk corporation and its successful operation, Myanmar for disaster risk analysis, India and Bangladesh for early warning detection system of disaster.

The areas which require financial assistance in Nepal are: research in disaster risk reduction and management, invention and innovation of technology, early warning detection system, tracing ground-level impacts of climate change and devising plans for disaster risk reduction in different topographical regions of Nepal.

Nepal can learn a lot from these neighboring countries to minimize and avoid the adverse impact of the disaster at the social, economic and environmental level. For instance, a vast stretch of land in Nepal is under the influence of water — call it river catchment area and/or monsoon affected area. What we need in such a scenario is to encourage agricultural and forest activities to absorb more water to manage the unmanaged water-related disaster. Human settlement in such land area is generally discouraged. Scientific categorization of such river affected land-area in Nepal for zeroing on the nature and type of agricultural activities and advance level of land management is needed without further delay.

Not all the provinces and local level governments are equally competent in handling disaster risk management. Focused attention must be paid for expanding their institutional capacity to handle disaster management and budgetary expenses are to be allotted for training and technological innovations for disaster risk reduction at the yearly or half-yearly basis. It is to be noted here that financing Government and non-government organizations in handling disaster risk reduction has proven infructuous. The areas which require financial assistance in Nepal are: research in disaster risk reduction and management, invention and innovation of technology, early warning detection system, tracing ground-level impacts of climate change and devising plans for disaster risk reduction in different topographical regions of Nepal.

The success of disaster risk reduction depends upon the restoration and recovery of damaged property and resilience of the community bouncing back in the normal life pattern after the strike of disaster. What we are doing at this moment is focusing more on the response and recovery phase of disaster management and neglecting the dimension of ‘risk reduction’. Political masters and highly placed officials in Nepal must rise above their selfish goal of diverting the public finance on unnecessary projects for their personal benefits and keep the interest of Nepalese people in ‘center stage’ of their decisions.