WFP Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific - 2016 SPRs RBB 2016 SPRs by country | Page 620

Standard Project Report 2016
Project Objectives and Results
Project Objectives
The two major earthquakes exceeding magnitude 7, which struck Nepal on 25 April 2015 and 12 May 2015, created
a major humanitarian emergency in the country, in which 300 organizations responded in support of the
government-led response through the humanitarian cluster system. Following the request for assistance from the
Government of Nepal, WFP, in its role as the lead agency of the Logistics Cluster and Emergency
Telecommunications Cluster (ETC), immediately launched Special Operation: Logistics and Telecommunications
Augmentation and Coordination in April 2015 to support the Government and coordinate the humanitarian
community’s relief efforts.
In line with WFP’s Strategic Objective 1, the Special Operation aimed to save lives and protect livelihoods in
emergencies through supporting the humanitarian community in their efforts to deliver life-saving relief items across
the affected areas in Nepal. This was done by facilitating the provision of efficient and coordinated logistics services
in order to ensure an uninterrupted supply chain of humanitarian relief items in the worst-affected districts of
Gorkha, Dhading, Dolakha and Sindupalchowk. The project also aimed to support the Government's response
efforts by providing logistics coordination and information management services. WFP’s remote access operations
(RAO) and engineering services were also critical components of the Logistics Cluster. The RAO and engineering
teams implemented trail rehabilitation and road repairs, and operated “last-mile” transport services (using porters
and pack animals) to reach remote villages where vehicular transport was not possible.
Humanitarian activities were hampered by the damage to telecommunication infrastructure and poor weather
conditions in the affected areas which frequently disrupted communications, hence the ETC was immediately
activated to install telecommunication equipment—very high frequency (VHF) repeaters, fast internet connectivity
with Ku-band and C-band very small aperture terminals (VSAT)—at three main operational areas during the
response. As the local service providers started to revive their services after the initial breakdown, the VSAT
services were gradually decommissioned and replaced with connectivity from local internet service providers. The
radio operations were later handed over to United Nations Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS) after the
ETC's deactivation in December 2015.
In the latter part of 2015, political unrest in southern Nepal resulted in a border blockade that severely restricted fuel
and other critical supplies entering into the country. The lack of fuel impacted the full supply chain for WFP and
cluster partners’ food and non-food items, and hampered the ability of the humanitarian community to implement
plans to deliver vital relief items to high mountainous areas before the winter of 2015. Hence, Logistics Cluster
activities had to be postponed into 2016.
As conditions in the earthquake-affected areas improved, a trend analysis of the service utilisation of Logistics
Cluster activities from January to March 2016, showed an 88 percent decrease in requests for services. This
analysis was the basis for the gradual scale-down and close-up of the cluster activities, although other activities
under the RAO were still needed to facilitate a smooth transition from relief to recovery. For example, since
the delivery of relief items before winter was delayed, access to villages situated in remote mountainous locations
was still needed; therefore, the RAO had an important role in enabling access to the most remote villages so that
the humanitarian community could