Nepal. December 2016.
NORWEGIAN CHURCH AID RESPONSE TO THE NEPAL.pdf
Program overview
After the 2015 earthquake in Nepal, 4.2 million needed WASH assistance. Members of the ACT Alliance were quick to respond. Given the in-country lack of WASH expertise, this was attributed to Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) who, within a period of 48 hours, had already started to deploy its experts. The emergency response which followed covered the period April 2015 to April 2016, with funding from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the NCA itself.
Evaluation overview
This is an end of programme evaluation to assess NCAs WASH emergency response. The objective of the assessment was to gather and ensure organizational learning from NCA’s WASH emergency response. This includes learning from an independent assessment of the appropriateness, timeliness, effectiveness and efficiency of the interventions, compliance with Core Humanitarian Standards and the role of local actors.
Key findings and recommendations
This humanitarian response was undertaken under challenging conditions and in difficult environments. While some challenges such as fuel shortages, trans-frontier blockades on materials and a pending monsoon season were outside the scope of this response, the institutional, technical, and social responsibilities of NCA, DCA and their Nepali partners were addressed and implemented to a very high level of satisfaction. The clear targeting of beneficiaries and provision of assistance to their immediate needs was undertaken in an efficient way. Over 100,000 people were reached through this initiative, 27,000 within the first 100 days of the first earthquake.
There are several recommendations made in this evaluation. One should ensure greater clarity and agreement for future personnel deployment, improve coordination between different actors and assess capacity of national staff. An integrated approach to WASH should be considered from the start, to include psychosocial
support, Education, Shelter, and Livelihoods. One should also ensure a robust M&E system. Consistency in delivery needs to be ensured across all partners with proportionate capacity building to ensure this.