Earthquake preparedness in Nepal
This external final evaluation offers a candid look at how preparedness shaped Nepal’s ability to respond to and recover from catastrophic seismic risk. Building on the Earthquake Preparedness for Safer Communities (EPS) programme that the British Red Cross (BRC) and Nepal Red Cross Society (NRCS) had been running in the Kathmandu Valley before 2015, the report finds that existing readiness proved insufficient once disaster struck at scale: contingency plans based on the 1934 earthquake were far too limited for the 2015 events, and preparedness efforts under EPS had not been carried out at the scale ultimately needed. Its central forward-looking conclusion is that the key challenge ahead lies in institutionalising these learnings to strengthen preparedness for future disasters, rather than letting hard-won capacity dissipate as staff reintegrate and funding ends.
The evaluation examines the BRC/NRCS recovery programme launched after the 25 April and 12 May 2015 earthquakes (magnitudes 7.8 and 7.1), which devastated more than 50 districts. Funded through the Disaster Emergency Committee (DEC) and a BRC appeal, the bilateral programme ran from November 2015 to April 2018 across 75 urban, peri-urban, and rural communities in Kathmandu, Lalitpur, and Bhaktapur, following NRCS’s “4+1” strategy of shelter, health, WASH, livelihoods, and community engagement and accountability. Assessing relevance, effectiveness, sustainability, and the value for money of the partnership model, the report surfaces practical lessons on adapting tools to urban seismic contexts, embedding vulnerability-based targeting, and sustaining institutional readiness between disasters—making it a useful evidence base for practitioners working to link recovery investment with lasting preparedness.