Building code implementation and compliance in Nepal

After the catastrophic Gorkha earthquake of April 2015, claiming 9,000 lives and displacing millions, it became apparent that the majority of Nepalese infrastructure could not cope with the severe natural hazards native to the country. The rapid urbanisation of the capital city of Kathmandu and surrounding areas had led to haphazard construction and wide-spread non-compliance with the existing building codes. Updated design standards were introduced in 2015 particularly focusing on guidelines for earthquake resistant building construction, and these are being revised further. It is now imperative that all aspects relating to codes including drafting, use, implementation and compliance are analysed in relation to Nepal’s socio-economic context to avoid a similar level of destruction in the event of another natural disaster. In this study, data compilation consists of an extensive literature review to understand the social and economic environment of Nepal as well as an evaluation of the existing codes for their suitability, use and implementation. This is supplemented by expert opinion through semi-structured interviews to develop an explanatory framework characterising the challenges to implementation and compliance. Key aspects of this framework among others include an appreciation of the building codes, municipality capacity, constraints on resources and training. The results suggest that the reasons for lack of compliance differ between urban and rural areas with the level of compliance being much lower outside of the cities. The framework may also be of practical use in other low-income countries.