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Interview: Nepal to seek solidarity, funds and share experiences at int'l conference on reconstruction: senior official

Xinhua, June 25, 2015 Adjust font size:

Nepal has said it will seek solidarity, certain funds and share its own experience at the International Conference on Nepal's Reconstruction to be held here on Thursday.

In a recent interview with Xinhua, Chief Secretary of the Nepalese government Leela Mani Paudyal said "The international conference is for the purpose of getting support including the funds for reconstruction of Nepal."

A 7.9-magnitude earthquake struck Nepal on April 25 this year, killing more than 8,800 people and injuring more than 23,000 others. It also destroyed more than 500,000 houses, affecting 2.8 million of Nepal's total 28 million population.

"On the basis of building back better, we want to build more resilient infrastructures including private infrastructures housing so we are hopeful that we will have sufficient gap funding from international community during and after the conference," the official said.

Nepal has estimated that it suffered damage worth 10 billion U. S. dollars in the aftermath of the April 25 massive quake. During the international conference, the Nepalese government is seeking the support of international donors for a reconstruction plan which is expected to cost 6.6 billion dollars over five years.

"We expect and hope that we will have sufficient kinds of commitments or willingness from the friendly countries to support Nepal and provide funds to meet the gap between our capability and requirement," the chief secretary said.

"Now, we have a final data and we will make requirement according to it."

Paudyal said the Nepalese government has recently promulgated a new ordinance, and through it, there is a special organization called the Authority for Reconstruction of Nepal.

"The authority will have separate fund. For that fund, the government has to put money. It depends upon how much we will be able to receive from the donors and the international community. And we will also use our own internal resources for post disaster reconstruction."

On the lessons the Nepalese government has learned from the big disaster, Paudyal listed preparedness improvement, coordination- related problems and lack of consolidated information as the most important ones.

"Although we could not have preparedness to cope up such a big scale of disaster in advance, we could have better preparedness for small disasters."

"There was capability type of question in terms of human resources... There needs to be coordination between the international agencies for better delivery and effective response and rescue," the official noted.

"We need to make an advance plan on how multiple channels can work together without hassles and duplications."

The International Conference on Nepal's Reconstruction is called by the Nepalese government which has invited representatives from about 70 countries and various multilateral agencies to participate.

"We expect a very good support from our neighbors, donors and multilateral agencies during the conference," Nepalese Finance Minister Ram Sharan Mahat told reporters on Tuesday. Endi