ADB approves 15 mln USD grant to restore livelihood of quake-ravaged Nepal

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a new 15 million U.S. dollars grant to rebuild schools, provide micro-loans to help restore livelihoods, and to boost awareness of disasters in quake-ravaged Nepal, according to a press release issued Friday

The grant will be effective in the 14 worst hit districts devastated by the April 25 earthquake in Nepal that killed nearly 9000 people.

"Destroyed homes, farmland, and business and lost livestock and harvests will push at least 700,000 additional Nepalese below the poverty line, many of them in the hard-hit rural central hill and mountain areas where poverty was already high," said Mayumi Ozaki, Financial Sector Specialist with ADB's South Asia Department.

"We must help families get back on their feet as soon as possible so they can rebuild their lives," he said.

On top of the 15 million U.S. dollars grant, the Nepal government will provide an additional 1.3 million dollars and the Small Farmers Development Bank, a Nepali umbrella micro-finance bank, will provide 1.5 million dollars.

Around 8.1 million dollars of the overall funding will be used to rebuild at least 14 model disaster-resilient schools, 7.0 million will be mobilized to provide micro-credit to at least 12, 500 households in the affected districts, and a further 1.9 million dollars will finance training to help people better understand how to prepare and cope with disasters. The remaining funds will be used for contingencies.

The 7.8-magnitude earthquake affected the livelihoods of an estimated 2.3 million households and 5.6 million workers across 31 districts in Nepal. Endi