Nairobi 30 April 2015— The United Nations has released the Flash Appeal for Response to the Nepal Earthquake, appealing for USD 415 million for the first three months. For the preparation of the emergency appeal, UN-Habitat collaborated with the Shelter, WASH and Early Recovery clusters.

So far over 5,500 people have been confirmed killed and a large amount of the country’s population has been affected. UN-Habitat’s housing and WASH teams in the country have been mobilized for immediate assessments.  Preparation for the response, identifying vulnerable groups, including renters in urban and semi-urban areas and approaches to organizing spontaneous settlements of displaced households have begun.

UN-Habitat is committed to increase the resilience of communities and cities to the impacts of natural and human-made crisis and undertake post-disaster and post-conflict recovery and rehabilitation of settlements and shelter in ways that advance safer settlements.

With proven contributions made through the People’s Process approach in several recovery and reconstruction settings aftermath disasters in Asia and the Pacific - namely Indonesia, Sri Lanka, The Maldives, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Philippines, and Pacific Island nations - UN-Habitat is now undertaking post-earthquake response in Nepal.

Priority appeal actions for shelter  that UN-Habitat has taken on before include: providing emergency cash assistance to address urgent needs of the most vulnerable households and host families, including rental subsidies for affected people in urban or semi-urban areas; supporting municipalities and districts to provide safe housing checks prior to population movement; and providing affected populations and implementing agencies with technical advocacy materials on appropriate, safe, building standards.

The immediate priority actions for Shelter, WASH and Early Recovery, which include rubble clearing and cleaning drainage systems, will be coordinated with government agencies and local authorities and implemented with communities and partners.