The grant is provided by the Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction, a fund set up by the Japanese government in 2000 to support poverty reduction and social development in ADB projects. ADB will manage the grant."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."
On top of the $15 million grant, the government will provide an additional $1.3 million and the Small Farmers Development Bank, a Nepali umbrella microfinance bank, will provide $1.5 million.
Around $8.1 million of the overall funding will be used to rebuild at least 14 model disaster-resilient schools, $7.0 will be mobilized to provide microcredit to at least 12,500 households in the affected districts, and a further $1.9 million 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 of April 25, followed by a major aftershock on May 12, affected the livelihoods of an estimated 2.3 million households and 5.6 million workers across 31 districts. This resulted in personal income losses of around $170 million in the fiscal year to July 15, 2015.
The $15 million grant adds to a $3 million disaster-response grant approved by ADB on May 27 and a $200 million emergency loan approved on June 24.
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