The Government of the United Kingdom has agreed to provide a grant assistance of Rs 2.5 billion to Nepal in the form of technical cooperation for the support to build earthquake resilience in Nepal.

Agreement to this effect was signed at the Ministry of Finance on Tuesday. The main objective of the project is to strengthen government's disaster risk management policy, scale up community-based disaster resilience activities and improve preparedness for a national and international emergency response in the event of a major earthquake, reads a press statement released after the singing.

The expected outputs of the programme include building national resilience through policy support, community resilience through community based earthquake and disaster preparedness, protecting health services and improved preparedness for emergency response.

The outcome of the programme will be; increased preparedness and improved capacity of disaster management systems and building resilience to minimize the impact of major earthquakes in Nepal.The project will cover school and hospital safety, emergency preparedness and response capacity, policy/institutional support for the disaster risk management.

The beneficiaries of this project will be communities most vulnerable to disasters, which includes poor and disadvantaged households and hard-to-reach groups within urban areas.

The Agreement was signed by Lal Shanker Ghimire, Joint Secretary and Chief of the foreign Aid Coordination Division, Ministry of Finance and Dominic O'Neil, Head of the Department for International Development, DFID Nepal on behalf of their respective governments.

source: The Himalayan Times,4 Sept 2012