In Nepal, tapping local labor to fast-track recovery

The U.N. World Food Program has teamed up with Nepal’s largest trekking associations to haul relief to high-altitude villages damaged by the earthquake that slammed the country April 25. The deal with the Trekking Agencies Association of Nepal and the Nepal Mountaineering Association is not just about overcoming logistical challenges to distributing aid in the mountainous country. It’s also a way to fast-track recovery by tapping local labor, according to Richard Ragan, WFP’s emergency coordinator in Nepal. “We’ve been using porters for years in Nepal,” Ragan told Devex. “It’s not really something that’s new to us in the country, but it’s new in the sense that we’re using disaster relief as a way to press into recovery and rehabilitation much faster than we would normally.” The 7.8-magnitude earthquake and the numerous aftershocks that followed destroyed infrastructure supporting a budding trekking industry in Langtang region — between the popular Annapurna and Everest routes — with landslides wiping out villages and cutting off tracks. A mountain climber himself, Ragan was aware of the growing number of trekkers visiting Langtang and what it meant for the local economy. “Over the years they’ve tried to develop what they call ‘the great Himalayan trail’,” running across the high mountains from east to west, Ragan said. This saw investment tipped in by the Nepal Tourism Board and trekking associations, and “a fair amount of labor has developed as a result.” “You’ve got porters now who are working in those areas who are dependent on the tourism trade,” the WFP emergency coordinator said, noting how porters have become “fundamentally important” to Nepal’s economy at both a macro and micro scale. “In the high mountain areas people are farmers and they don’t have a whole lot of opportunities for income,” he said. Trekking and the wider tourism industry offers other chances for employment, while on a larger scale the 800,000 odd tourists who visited Nepal in 2013 provided at least 2 percent of the country’s $19 billion gross domestic product — excluding spending outside of hotels and restaurants. Determining who does what Negotiations with TAAN and NMA took about a week, according to Ragan, with the deal announced May 27. “The responsibilities piece was probably most important for both of us, and then determining which areas we were going to go into, and how we were going to tackle the problem,” he said. More than 100,000 people in remote villages near the China border are estimated to have been affected by temblor, and about 75,000 of those live beyond where helicopters can land. Under the agreement, WFP, which heads the U.N. logistics cluster in Nepal, is responsible for determining what supplies are needed where. TAAN and NMA manage the movement of goods and repair damaged trails, while an elite team of around 40 Western and Nepalese mountaineers work on remote access, finding the safest routes for porters and overseeing trail clearing. About 4,000 porters are working in two of the worst-hit districts, Dhading and Dolakha, as part of the pilot. This is expected to extend to Gorkha, Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Sindhupalchowk, with up to 20,000 porters taking part — each carrying up to 30 kilograms for about $12 per day, with insurance, food and equipment like shoes bringing the total cost per porter to nearly $40. Air assets have been increased, with five Mi-8 and up to four high-altitude helicopters engaged to fly supplies to logistics storage hubs being set up along trails. Porters will then haul the goods to affected villages in coordination with local authorities. Some communities will also be called to collect supplies via SMS and radio services. In places where markets are working, aid partners are also rolling out cash assistance for families to buy food. TAAN President Ramesh Dhamala said trail clearing would take about a week and delivery of supplies another three. “We have a lot of people who are waiting for jobs so we can deploy a lot of employees,” Dhamala said. He said the association’s main concern was providing work for its labor force, which lost income after the earthquakes interrupted the trekking season. Fast-approaching deadline TAAN’s other concern was getting the project approved and funds mobilized as fast as possible so work could begin before the monsoon season. Seen as the biggest threat to the plan, the rains are expected to drench the country in a few weeks, soaking mountainsides already destabilized by the quakes, which are then likely to set off landslides, cause floods, wash away tracks and cut off villages. “We haven’t experienced a challenge like this before,” Ragan said. “It’s very unclear to me and to anybody else … how the trails are going to react during the rains.” Helicopters’ ability to fly during the monsoon can be reduced up to 50 percent, the WFP coordinator added, and porters can only safely work for a few hours. The ground for instance might be deemed too unstable and risky for the porters to traverse. The next few weeks will be critical, and pressure is mounting on Nepal’s aid and development partners to help repair the tracks and make them able to withstand the monsoon’s torrential rains, cut routes around avalanche sites, and identify areas that aren’t likely to get washed away. And once the monsoon season ends, winter sets in. If the trails aren’t cleared once it does, villages that are hard to reach now will be completely cut off. “If I told you that we knew 100 percent for sure what we were doing I would be disingenuous,” Ragan said. “This kind of stuff has really never been done before.” Check out more insights and analysis for global development leaders like you, and sign up as an Executive Member to receive the information you need for your organization to thrive.