Recovering an economy necessitates a good planning particularly in the post disaster period as it requires immediate, short- and long-term arrangement. Bibeksheel Nepali, a political party led by Nepali youths, defines 5R strategy to rebuild Nepal back in better position: Rescue, Relief, Reconstruction, Rehabilitation and Resurgence. Three types of plans stated in this article accommodate Bibeksheel's 5Rs at different levels.Earthquake victims immediately need to be rescued and vital services including food, shelter, sanitation and medical facilities should be supplied instantly. The short-term plan is the reconstruction phase which takes place after rescue and relief. The long-term plan is a comprehensive effort associated with bringing entire economic activities back on track.
Following the disaster, for almost three weeks, every effort was concentrated on rescuing victims. All segments of society including armed forces, civil servants, civil society, NGOs, business communities and international organizations dedicated themselves in this mission to their highest possible capacities. Rescue mission is not complete yet. However, it is time to expedite the process of developing strategic plan for recovery of post-disaster economy.
Without a clear strategic plan and full cooperation among the implementing agencies the recovery plan will not achieve anything. Therefore, each responsible agency should be cautious in avoiding overlapping in different activities set out in the recovery plan. Institutional and/or personal ego that used to appear among our implementing agencies should be avoided if the great national objective of bringing economy back on track is to attain.
Recovery plan consists of three major steps. First, an independent team of experts should be formed in order to conduct a detailed study on the economic impact caused by the disaster. Economic impact should be estimated considering different factors such as revenue losses, employment cuts, business closure, damage of infrastructure and natural resources, destruction of residential, business and commercial properties, and wage reduction. The government has recently deputed a team under an officer which also consists of an engineer and supporting staffs to collect the detail of destruction in earthquake-affected districts. This team lacks technical expertise for estimating the economic impact of disaster but may be able to provide raw data of devastation. However, it can be considered a good step since the proposed team of experts can utilize these data while estimating the economic impact of disaster and recommend additional resources desired for the recovery plan.
The second step is to make a decision on leading organization to initiate an economic recovery planning process. It has prima facially been observed in Nepal that the responsible institutions are not adequately clear in their roles. National Planning Commission (NPC) should have led this process. However, NPC seems, to some extent, engaged more in resource managing activities rather than being fully involved in developing economic recovery action plan.
Overlapping of activities carried out by the NPC, Ministry of Finance (MoF) and Cabinet Secretariat have taken place. Therefore a clear distinction should be made soon which expedites the process of developing economic recovery action plan (ERAP) and also simplifies its implementation. Let NPC prepare a scientific and implementable action plan and MoF, with approval from the parliament, arrange financial resources required for the same. Furthermore, NPC should also be involved in evaluation and monitoring activities.
The third step is to assign different set of activities to line agencies. One should bear in mind that ERAP has many facets such as the reconstruction of public, industrial and residential properties damaged by the earthquake, the damages of infrastructure currently administered by different agencies (i.e. roads, canals, power houses etc.) and reopening businesses, creating employments and raising wage rate to the pre-disaster level. The latter two can be implemented by the concerned line ministries.
Several options are available and it has been heard that initial exercises are already being carried out for appropriate institutional set-up for some options. One concept paper on forming a separate ministry for rural infrastructure development and reconstruction is already in discussion although it has not derived a formal shape yet. If this option is to be implemented, many activities currently carried out by line ministries will fall under the jurisdiction of the proposed ministry. This, on one hand, requires a greater consensus among concerned ministries as well as coalition partners. On the other hand, it imposes additional administrative expenses. Furthermore, it will not only require additional time for own institutional set-up but may trigger inter-ministerial conflicts. For these reasons, the formation of a separate ministry for reconstruction may not be a good option.
The second option is to establish a powerful reconstruction corporation. This idea seems to have taken a relatively wide momentum in policy discussion. However, there appear mainly two latent factors behind this idea. First, some ambitious political leaders wish to use this as an opportunity to build their political image by leading the corporation as many of them have lost their popularity due to irresponsible behavior at the time of disaster. The second is the interest of donor agencies. They seem reluctant to provide financial resources directly to the Prime Minister's Disaster Relief Fund (PMDRF) without a proper assurance of their involvement in the subsequent activities. Therefore, they are seeking space in the whole mechanism of reconstruction process ranging from implementation to the monitoring and evaluation stage.
The argument of urgency of reconstruction has been put forward by advocates of this idea saying that it requires a powerful organization that can relax the leverage of not applying existing financial procedure strictly and setting up a reconstruction corporation can be a good option for this purpose.
Although the establishment of a corporation is likely to serve the interest of groups of donors and leaders, this idea may also suffer from weakness analogous to the first option. That is setting up a new institution requires time and resources and political conflict may arise to lead the corporation. Moreover, conflicts can arise also between the line ministries and the corporation. Therefore, this option comes with many strings attached.
The third option is to assign reconstruction responsibilities to the institution already in place. Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction (MoPR) can be an appropriate institution to carry out activities associated particularly with short term plan—the reconstruction. There are several reasons to support this opinion although MoPR's initial design was for the reconstruction of damages of properties caused by conflict but not by the natural disaster.
First, it has already an institutional set up to the district level which may only require some extension to the VDC level in most earthquake-affected districts. It may also require, to some extent, strengthening the Peace Trust Fund Secretariat (PTFS). Second, there is already an agreed mechanism of resource mobilization where donors can inject their resources. It also ensures them enough space for its implementation monitoring and evaluation activities. Third, assigning this responsibility to the MoPR is also likely to avoid overlapping in reconstruction activities.
It will be complicated to distinguish conflict-related destruction and the destruction caused by the natural disaster which may lead to duplication in reconstruction works. The concept of two separate institutions for reconstruction is not practical.
The author holds PhD in development economics from the City University, UK
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