This paper discusses immediate concerns and imminent threats in Kathmandu valley, initiatives in
disaster risk reduction and current status of essential initiatives for resilient development. One of the
key premises of disaster risk reduction is investing today to mitigate the future risks. When the
resources are limited and there are pressing demands to meet daily needs, realizing the disaster
resilient development is a challenging task. Kathmandu valley, which comprises of five municipalities
within three districts, is currently grappling with the issues such as power shortage, very polluted
environment and acute shortage of clean water among others. The level of pollution is alarmingly high
and an ongoing road expansion program has further worsened the environment. Very rapid increase
in population has put pressure on land, housing and urban facilities. The poor living condition is major
issue of immediate concern to the communities. Moreover, the city is at risk from hazards like
earthquake, floods and landslides. Despite of devastating earthquakes in the past, the buildings are
usually constructed without following earthquake safer practices. In addition to hazards, climate
change is likely to increase stress on the living condition in general and may increase severity and
frequency of climate disasters in particular. The risk reduction initiatives and efforts towards making
the cities resilient, such as implementation of building code, have not resonated to the communities
who are more concerned about immediate issues. A survey was conducted among experts to identify
significant drivers of risk, assess relevancy of different initiatives for making cities resilient and
examine progress in implementing those initiatives in the context of Kathmandu valley. The results
show that increasing urban population and unsafe building stocks are major drivers of risk. The
results also point to the fact that the progress in implementing different initiatives to make Kathmandu
valley resilient is not satisfactory. A 2-fold strategy of raising awareness of communities to create
demand for safer constructions and building institutional capacity to enforce building code
compliance is recommended for resilient development of Kathmandu.