2. Introduction

Welcome to the course, disaster recovery and build back better. My name is Ram Sateesh. I am an assistant professor in Department of Architecture and Planning, IIT Roorkee. Today, we are going to discuss about build back better in the case of Nepal recovery.

In this introduction, the speaker welcomes the students to the course on disaster recovery and the 'Build Back Better' concept. This sets the context of the discussion for the day, which focuses on Nepal's recovery process following a disaster. The speaker is a knowledgeable professor in the relevant field, suggesting that students can expect informed insights into the topic.

Imagine attending a seminar where an experienced chef introduces a cooking class centered on making dishes from scratch after a natural disaster. Just like the chef guides you through the recovery of a meal as you learn the techniques, here, the professor is going to guide students through the recovery process of Nepal, emphasizing the importance of the 'Build Back Better' philosophy.

So, whatever I am going to discuss with you today, it will be from the South Asian disaster report which was published in 2016 and these about the BBB the build back better and how different case studies are able to produce different lessons, what we can take back and how we can learn from it because every disaster experience provide us some lessons to take over for the future.

The speaker refers to a specific document, the South Asian disaster report from 2016, which serves as the primary source for the discussion. This report contains various case studies that illustrate the 'Build Back Better' concept and the lessons learned from each disaster. The key takeaway is that each disaster serves as a teaching moment to prepare for future events.

Think of the report as a recipe book written after various cooking challenges faced by chefs. Each recipe (case study) not only highlights a unique way to recover (rebuild) but also teaches future chefs (policymakers and disaster management professionals) how to handle similar challenges better.

So, if you look at it from 2007 to 2015, almost like how about 7 to 8 years, we can see a variety of disasters hitting the South Asian context and we as a different countries though it is a Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh and as well as Nepal, we share some similarities, not only from the cultural aspect but also from our socio-economic context of it and our the vulnerable context of it and the development setting of it.

The speaker highlights that between 2007 and 2015, South Asia experienced multiple disasters, and countries in this region, like Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, and Nepal, have similar cultural and socio-economic challenges. Recognizing these similarities is crucial as it suggests that lessons learned in one country can apply to others in the region.

Imagine a network of students in different countries sharing stories about challenges they face in school. By understanding that they have common problems, like limited resources or cultural barriers, they can collaborate and share solutions that can help each other out.

So, in today's lecture, we are going to discuss about the Nepal earthquake recovery, which has hit in the April of 2015 and as a part of this report before this there have been some event which happened in Delhi and School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi also have been part of this and initially this report discusses about the jargon on similarities and dissimilarities of a build back better, the notion of build back better.

The lecture will specifically focus on the recovery efforts following the Nepal earthquake that occurred in April 2015. The students will learn about previous events that have informed this discussion and how the concept of 'Build Back Better' is defined and understood in various contexts.

Consider a case where a school is dedicated to understanding student survival stories after a natural disaster. Each story helps to frame the foundation of how best to rebuild the school system—this is akin to how the cases outline efforts after the earthquake to establish effective recovery strategies.

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