Emergency Rehabilitation of Flood Damaged Trail Bridges – Single Phase

The social and economic poverty and the vulnerability of people, especially of disadvantaged groups (DAGs), are due to their lack of physical access to basic services, economic opportunities and to natural resources. These are further exacerbated by un-anticipated natural and climatic disasters. Although several safety factors and measures were considered and undertaken during designs and construction of trail bridges, flash floods of huge discharge can pose greater risks to trail bridges. The flash floods of August 2014 damaged 21 trail bridges in 5 districts initially built with Swiss support restricting the access of about 60,000 people to basic services, markets and farms.

The main goal of the proposed intervention is to restore a safe river crossing for the local people, particularly for disadvantaged groups, to improve their access to basic social services, economic resources and opportunities by rehabilitating and reconstructing the damaged trail bridges caused by the floods in August 2014 in Nepal.

An estimated 60’000 rural people living in the zone of influence of the 21 trail bridges.

Flood affected people and communities have restored access to basic services and relief efforts through the rehabilitation of critical trail bridges in the flood affected areas.

Expected results:  

Government of Nepal and District Development Committees reconstruct/rehabilitate 21 trail bridges that have been damaged by recent floods.

Results from previous phases:  

Over the last 4 decades, more than 5’500 trail bridges were built. As a result, over 14 mio people have better access to services through safer river crossings. On average more than 11 million people use trail bridges every day. Each bridge has reduced walking distance for users by 2.5 hrs on each trip they make on average. In the areas that are close to trail bridges that were built, the school attendance increased by 26% and visits to health centres increased by 30% on average. New shops opened up at 32% of bridge sites, with increasing economic activities.These results have been duly documented by the independent external evaluation in 2013

The respective local governments (District Development Committees and Village Development Committees), local communities

The respective local governments (District Development Committees;

Phase 1 01.01.2015 - 31.07.2017   (Completed)