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Summary

This OECD Development Centre working paper explores disaster risks and the institutional responses in the Himalayan region, with a focus on Nepal and Bhutan. It highlights the region’s geological fragility, where rapid glacier melt, intense monsoon rainfall, floods, and seismic activity heighten hazard exposure, and stresses that, over time, both hazard frequency and vulnerability have increased, yet mitigation measures remain insufficient. By summarizing historical disaster impacts from 1950 to 2025, such as thousands of deaths and millions affected by floods, earthquakes, storms, and droughts in Nepal and Bhutan, the paper critiques existing institutional frameworks: Nepal’s National Disaster Response Framework (2013) and Bhutan’s governmental structure for emergency response. It also examines challenges in governance, coordination, and financing, while spotlighting promising policy initiatives like holistic resilience planning, the development of disaster-information platforms, and early steps toward institutionalised disaster risk insurance