The present independent evaluation looked at Handicap International’s contribution to the Earthquake Preparedness Project and how this contributed to the response to the 2015 earthquake in Nepal. The Earthquake Preparedness Project (EPP) is funded by DIPECHO (the European Commission Humanitarian Aid Office’s Disaster Preparedness Program) as well as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Luxemburg and the French Centre de Crise, and has been implemented since 2011 in connection with a consortium led by the World Health Organization (WHO), and involving Save the Children and Oxfam.
The evaluation was commissioned by Handicap International (HI) in September 2015, and was conducted by an independent team of consultants (Francois Grunewald and Dr. Lakshmi Narayn Thakur) in November 2015. It was funded by the Luxemburg Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The EPP aimed to strengthen the health sector response capacity in the event of a high intensity earthquake in the Kathmandu Valley. The evaluation had to respond to a series of questions relating specifically to HI activities and their impact during the health sector response to the 2015 earthquake.