Bhadra Sharma and Nida Najar
The New York Times
June 25, 2015
Police officers secured Basantapur Durbar Square ahead of a tour by representatives of donor agencies in Kathmandu, Nepal, on Wednesday. CreditNavesh Chitrakar/Reuters
As foreign donors and agencies pledged more than $3 billion in aid for Nepal on Thursday to support its post-earthquake reconstruction, the government sought to assure would-be contributors that the funds would be used effectively.
“We will share periodically the use of the funds to maintain transparency because you are accountable to your own citizens,” Prime Minister Sushil Koirala told an international donors’ conference in Kathmandu, the Nepalese capital, where most of the pledges were announced.
More than 8,800 people were killed in the earthquakes in April and May, and over half a million homes were destroyed, making the construction of housing a pressing need.
India, which borders Nepal and quickly mobilized an emergency response after the first earthquake, was the single largest donor, with Sushma Swaraj, India’s external affairs minister, pledging $1 billion for reconstruction at the meeting. Thursday’s commitment was on top of a previously announced $1 billion over the next five years.
“Nepal and India are joined in both their joys and sorrows,” Ms. Swaraj said in Kathmandu. “Therefore, we need to closely coordinate our disaster response and help each other in the wake of such calamities.”
Foreign Minister Wang Yi of China promised $483 million, while the Japanese government pledged $260 million. Further commitments came from the Asian Development Bank, Britain, the United States, the European Union and other countries.
The World Bank on Tuesday pledged a loan of up to $500 million, partly for the reconstruction of housing in rural areas and for the government’s budget.
The total promised, including previously announced commitments from India and China, was about $4.4 billion, Nepal’s finance minister, Ram Sharan Mahat, said, more than half of what Nepal has said it needs, while the largest governmental pledges came from the country’s neighbors in Asia. In a report released last week, the Nepal Planning Commission estimated the cost of reconstruction at $6.7 billion, about a third of the country’s annual economic output of just over $19 billion.
The report detailed additional areas of focus for reconstruction, including schools, roads, government buildings, agriculture and heritage monuments.
Chandan Sapkota, an economist at the Asian Development Bank who is based in Nepal, said concerns remained over the capacity of the Nepalese government, mired in bureaucratic delays, to use the aid effectively.
The Nepalese government announced on Monday that it would set up a new autonomous authority to oversee the spending of donated reconstruction funds, but it has not yet provided a road map for how the authority would operate.
“We need a plan from the government that we can spend the money within four to five years,” Mr. Sapkota said. “And that’s a very tall order.”
Nepal’s finance minister, Ram Sharan Mahat, said on Thursday that the trade deficit for the current fiscal year, set to end next month, would grow in the earthquake’s aftermath, deepening the need for donor funds.
Even as the central government made assurances that the funds would be implemented efficiently, officials in earthquake-affected districts have said that the government’s plan to immediately provide $2,000 to families for home rebuilding is mired in red tape.
It has also been difficult to verify the identity of quake victims, said Devendra Raj Lamichhane, the chief district officer of Dolakha, which was hard-hit by the second earthquake on May 12, when nearly 200 people in the district died.
Mr. Sapkota, the economist, said the donors had “played their part — they’ve pledged a lot of money.” He added that the Asian Development Bank’s commitment of up to $600 million would largely go to reconstructing government schools. “Now, it’s up to the government to spend it,” he said.
