Nepal: Disaster Resilience of Schools Project

Education / Education sector development

Three natural disasters threaten school infrastructure in Nepal: earthquakes, landslides and flood. Records show that the risks linked to an earthquake in terms of casualties, number of affected persons and physical damages remains the greatest of all. Making school infrastructure resilient to earthquakes is a priority and doing so would make them resistant to flood and landslide damages as well.

The Project would mainstream the reconstruction and retrofitting of the most vulnerable schools in the 14 affected districts of Nepal. A DRR program would complement the retrofitting effort. The proposed Project would pilot a community-driven retrofitting by local government of 3 schools in selected municipalities. The objective is also to train the remote communities to replicate the good practice in future government funding.

Disaster risk management for human resource development enhanced (Post Disaster Recovery Framework and School Sector Development Plan)_a

[a = Government of Nepal, National Reconstruction Authority. 2016. Nepal Earthquake 2015: Post Disaster Recovery Framework, 2016-2020.Kathmandu; and Government of Nepal, Ministry of Education.2016. School Sector Development Plan, 2016-2030. Kathmandu.

Heavily damaged schools reconstructed and improved

Unsafe schools retrofitted and disaster risk reduced

Institutional capacity for disaster resilience strengthened_g

[g = Capacity of MOEST, municipalities, SMCs, and communities strengthened.]

" Recon1 comprises of 66 schools of which 59 schools' construction work completed while progress of 7 schools are at the advance stage of construction. Overall physical progress of Recon I is 96%.

" Recon 2 comprises of 106 schools that are packaged into 9 contract packages. All 9 packages were awarded and work going on with overall physical progress of 65%.

From the loan saving amount, reconstruction of additional 37 schools under recon 3 is planned. Three packages have been prepared of which third package is at LOA stage and two packages were awarded at November 2021.

Activities on solar power is just initiated. Aid Implementation Support Team (National Consulting firm) for solar component: contract agreement done on 5 February 2021 and inception report has been submitted which need revisions based on feedback from ADB.

DRM consultant prepared all the documents and training materials. 4 days DRM Training and 2 day Menstrual Hygiene training started and completed in 30 schools from Kathmandu, Bhaktapur, and Dolakha.

DSC has developed the design and DRM Team has reviewed GESI responsive retrofit design and implementation is going on in 3 schools of Gorkha, Kavrepalchowk and Makwanpur District.

As of September 2021, retrofitting works has been commenced in 52 schools (4 packages). All other 5 contracts for retrofitting of 191 schools have already been awarded and will commence work from last week of October.There has been average physical progress of 48.25%, with highest being in Retro package-1 (61%) and lowest being in Retro package-3 (32%).

MOU has been done with CEHRD/EMIS for the enhancement of the EMIS. Coordination with CEHRD/EMIS is continued.

DRM consultant has prepared training plan and materials for the trainings to Government engineers. 120 masons training in disaster resilient construction were completed in 3 districts.

DRM consultant is doing the collection of data and information to prepare comprehensive user manual for DRR implementation.

DRM consultant already started scalable pilot on community-driven retrofitting by local government of 3 schools in Gorkha, Makawanpur and Kavrepalanchowk Districts.

All consultants will be recruited according to ADB Procurement Policy (2017, as amended from time to time) and ADB Procurement Regulations (2017, as amended from time to time). The terms of reference for all consulting services are detailed in Section D.

An estimated 7,418 person-months (7,262 through firm and or NGO and 156 through individual person-months) are required to (i) facilitate project management and coordination, (ii) design and supervise civil works, (iii) organize community disaster risk reduction, (iv) implement of solar component, and (v) strengthen the institutional and operational capacity of the implementing agency. Consulting firm will be engaged using the quality and cost-based selection (QCBS) method with a standard quality cost ratio of 80:20.

All procurement of goods and works will be undertaken in accordance with ADB Procurement Policy (2017, as amended from time to time) and ADB Procurement Regulations (2017, as amended from time to time).

Open competitive bidding (OCB) method with international advertisement will be used for any civil works contract estimated to $5 million or more, and any goods contract estimated to cost $ 2 million or more. OCB method with national advertisement will be used for any civil works contract estimated to cost below $5 million and any goods contract estimated to cost below $2 million. Shopping will be used for any civil works or goods contract estimated to cost below $100,000.