Technical Assessment of Small-scale Community Infrastructure

The April 2015 earthquake damaged or made dysfunctional a large number of community infrastructures, particularly water supply schemes. As part of the reconstruction process, Oxfam implements rehabilitation and reconstruction of a range of community infrastructures under Earthquake Response Program in seven most affected districts in Nepal, Lalitpur, Bhaktapur, Kathmandu, Sindhupalchok, Nuwakot, Dhading, and Gorkha.
SW Nepal Pvt Ltd was invited by Oxfam to carry out third party technical assessment of its WASH and other infrastructure projects to provide independent evaluation of its works and offer commendations for possible improvement areas.

The project activities covered under the assessment are mainly on Water Sanitation and Hygiene, Resilient Livelihoods (Emergency Food Security and Vulnerable Livelihood), Housing (Shelter), Gender and protection and Disaster Risk Reduction sectors.

SW Nepal assigned a multi-sectoral team to evaluate independent the different dimensions of the infrastructure covering quality, process, benefits and impact areas of the assets developed. In doing so, activities carried out by SW Nepal included a detailed site based review of the constructed water supply schemes, funded by the DFID, in the districts of Dhading, Gorkha and Nuwakot. The review included technical and social areas focusing on quality, reliability, sustainability and safety of water supply schemes.

This study aids Oxfam to deeply understand the strength and weaknesses of the infrastructures in relation to the technical, financial, and social aspects and allows for evaluation and dissemination of the perceived and actual benefits to the targeted communities. Furthermore, the services provided by SW Nepal gives Oxfam an opportunity to replicate the learning, and capitalise on its strengths and improve on the weaknesses.