A leading bilateral donor to Nepal, the UK Department for International Development (DFID) has said its assistance to Nepal is under constant report.

Introducing its annual report covering its activities in Nepal in 2005, Mark Mallalieu, head of DFID Nepal said, “The purpose of the report is to enable people throughout the country to understand what DFID is trying to achieve and the types of projects and programmes that we support”.

The report also sets out the challenges ahead and how DFID plans to respond to these.

“Major challenges lie ahead; the conflict continues relentlessly, democracy is under threat and there is a risk of a humanitarian crisis. We will look for opportunities to deliver effective aid whilst ensuring transparency and accountability in our work and in the work of the partners we fund. However, our support remains under constant review to ensure that it is reaching those for whom it is intended”, concluded Mallalieu.

DFID is the British government ministry responsible for Britain’s contribution towards international efforts to eliminate poverty. DFID aims to support HMG/Nepal in its efforts to achieve the 10th Plan poverty-reduction targets and the Millennium Development Goals, said the aid agency.

The key areas of current DFID support to Nepal are peace building, governance, basic services, social inclusion and livelihoods. It has projects and programmes in most parts of Nepal and mainly in the western and far western regions. It works with various partners in Nepal. All DFID assistance is provided on grant terms and is free of any political or economic conditions tying its use to UK products and services, the agency said.

Together with Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), DFID has launched the Rights Democracy and Inclusion Fund (RDIF) last month to contribute to “stable democratic future for Nepal.”

The donors said the new initiative was a legitimate initiative as their support will not be biased and that they will not be providing direct finance to political parties. They said as much as 2.8 million pounds (approx. Rs 350 million) will be available under the RDIF for a period of next three years.

By Lok Nath Bhusal

The overriding objective of development efforts in Nepal is poverty alleviation. The Tenth Plan (2002-2007) is a manifestation of Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), which is the government’s main medium-term strategic roadmap for tackling poverty. This blueprint is a major substantive policy statement to integrate all development activities towards reducing the population below the poverty line from 38 percent at the beginning of the plan period to 30 percent by the end of the plan, and to further reduce the poverty ratio to 10 percent in about fifteen years’ time. Built upon the participative framework, PRSP is a comprehensive policy statement processed out from the preferences of various stakeholders. At its best, it is intended to reshape our conventional wisdom about fighting the causes of destitution in a more systematic way. The plan has unveiled a poverty reduction strategy based on four strong pillars: high, sustained and broad-based economic growth, social sector and rural infrastructure development with emphasis on human development, targeted program with emphasis on social inclusion, and improved governance. A closer look at these four pillars suggests that we are trying to realize an environmentally sound and market-led prosperity with a renewed government intervention for the provision of public goods and social security with public sector managerialism.

In line with the mainstream economic convention, our approach of allowing private sector to lead the economic activities falls under pillar no. one though state intervention is desirable if market fails to produce efficient outcome. This pillar aims at addressing the income poverty, poverty arising from low income. This is consistent with the hypothesis that market is efficient for the provision of private goods provided competition exists in the marketplace. PRSP advocates an energetic private sector that is capable enough to row the economy. It is common classic and neo-classic economic tradition that relative to government, private sector is more prudent and parsimonious at capital accumulation, which is the engine of growth at the initial stage of economic development. This tendency has been observed in today’s advanced economies at their initial stages of development. Realizing this empirical evidence from the advanced economies, PRSP assigns a dynamic role to market for the operation of economic activities both in the traditional and modern sectors of the economy. The basic areas of operation under this pillar are income generating activities, agriculture, irrigation, forestry, land, water, micro-finance as well as vital areas like trade, infrastructure development and environmental protection. Privatization, liberalization of government regulations and restriction such as trade, and other deregulating measures combined with various capitalization policies are some of the explicit efforts made in this regard. As a result, today’s fast-moving marketplace is rapidly taking market share away from public organizations, even from public monopolies in the past. Nevertheless, we are demanding state regulation by putting the word sustained, which implies conservation of environment, a public good. As market ignores the social cost of pollution, its production or consumption tends to be socially inefficient. To equalize marginal cost and marginal benefit, taxation is essential in case of negative externality and subsidy is needed in case of positive externality. Furthermore, PRSP puts its emphasis on growth-enhancing government regulation to offset monopolistic power, destructive lobbying, cut-throat competition, institutional rent seeking, and ‘rich-win and poor-loose’/inequity in the marketplace; economic system can only be revitalized if competition forces are structured and managed very well.

Under the prevailing capacity of the market, state has to shoulder the responsibility of developing social sector and rural infrastructure; pillar no. two, which aims at providing basic services and amenities for improving the quality of life. Although PRSP urges for the involvement of private sector wherever feasible in these vital areas, market, owing to its profit motive, is reluctant to make investment. Also, since the intervention in these areas largely falls under the public goods domain, provision of education, training, health care, nutrition and reliable public information, as the major components for social sector development, is considered to be the state obligation. The economic rationale for this is simply the need of capable human recourses as the economy is set on track- the contribution of factor productivity on national income growth increases than that of conventional inputs as the economy progresses towards advance stages of development. Moreover, physical infrastructure especially in the rural areas has to be established by the government, and its justification is the hypothesis that provision of public goods is necessary for the efficient market operation. A common instance can be the emergence of land market after the state establishes a transportation network. Though state intervention seems to be the only option in the absence of market, there exists a very big room for partnership with civil society organizations (I/NGO) and even with the private sector provided state is cleaver enough at making breakthroughs in terms of productive policy measures and new managerial initiatives.

Mainstreaming the groups- women, dalit, marginalized and people from the remote areas- which could not be included in the development process in the past are supposed to be included through targeted programs under the third pillar of the PRSP. This pillar is built upon the hypothesis that each citizen has to be provided with an equal and equitable environment in order to develop his/her latent human potentialities for creating a desegregated society in which every member is able to make informed choices. As inequality of opportunities and exclusion from socio-economic and political processes, which result into poverty, often disrupt socio-economic stability, state must act both as an aggressive provider and a facilitator in breaking this vicious circle. Concretely, PRSP emphasizes on programs for social inclusion and economic empowerment through various distributive policy instruments targeted to hard-core poor, asset-less, women and disadvantaged. The main thrust of this pillar is to bring the excluded groups into mainstream of development through targeted programs for their upliftment. A special type of program such as ‘security and development program’ in the conflict affected areas is an instance to this end. Here, government intervention is most desirable as a provider despite the heavy involvement of vibrant civil society organizations, including the I/NGOs, which are considered to be better equipped in building up the capacity, skills and competence of poor and excluded people. Indeed, PRSP has provided a wide space to civil society organizations for carrying out various people centered development works by addressing issues such as social exclusion, poor governance, infrastructure deficiency, social sector development, conflict management, peace building and so forth in partnership with local autonomous bodies. Obviously, these interventions would result into the creation of more egalitarian Nepal.

The 4th pillar of the PRSP advocates for enhancing new managerial initiatives within the whole governance system with a noble objective of reinventing our government; ensuring good governance, which is the most vital for the success of all other three pillars. In an era of value for money, competitiveness, change, and innovation for efficiency and effectiveness, PRSP emphasizes the entire government structures, systems and processes to be reengineered through various complementary reform agenda. Theoretically, big bang reforms are considered to be more productive and efficient compared to marginal changes if public managers and policy makers deserve sufficient rationality, having perfect knowledge of causes and consequences of an operation within one’s jurisdiction. Unlike the Weberian bureaucratic model, PRSP recognizes the deficiency of complete rationality in our public bureaucracy, and focuses on the incremental changes in a number of public sector operations. PRSP urges the public institutions to strive constantly to improve their performance. The most fundamental one is to energize and revitalize bureaucratic ingenuity to match the private sector management which operates based on the marginal analysis – at the optimum point marginal cost always equals to marginal revenue. PRSP advocates for transforming our huge, rule-driven bureaucratic monster with inertia, snail’s pace, and monumental waste to smaller, efficient, effective, and mission-driven organizations having promptness, professionalism, innovation, flexibility, and frugality in their service delivery. Control of corruption and irregularities through enhancing the institutional capacity of the anticorruption watchdogs such as CIIA and National Vigilance Center, promoting mechanism to ensure accountability and transparency through Citizen Charter, public audit etc. are additional measures intended towards ensuring credibility of the government. Fiscal and financial reforms are devised for guaranteeing fiscal discipline and value for money, and decentralization and local autonomy has been coined as the major instrument for popular participation. Essentially, all these are the determining factors for good governance.

To conclude, form the closer look at our PRSP policy statement, it appears that our policy document clearly captures all strategic areas for poverty reduction, an overarching objective to be achieved by appropriately combining the efforts of state, market and community. Overall policy works towards good governance, provision of public goods and intervention where market fails are the major areas of government’s involvement. Supply of both private and public goods wherever possible under broad public policy framework constitutes the role of market. Basically, the mushrooming civil society sector as a result of liberalization policy in the early 1990s has been operating in those areas where both state and market largely remain absent. However, it also operates in partnership with state and market in a number of circumstances; they perform both supplementary and complementary role. It must be recognized that I/NGOs’ active participation in development has been crucial in the form of their contribution of sizable amount of resources and expertise in some selected development issues.

Under the four strategic pillars, PRSP, as a substantive public policy statement, consigns each of the institution with their clear roles directed towards the challenging but achievable objective of poverty reduction in Nepal. As a result, the latest statistics of Nepal Living Standard Survey has shown significant reduction in poverty head count (31% in 2003-04 compared to 42% in 1995-96), incidence of poverty by 10% on average, and poverty gap. However, Gini coefficient—the statistical measure of inequality of distribution of income and assets across various income groups in the population– has risen from 0.34 to 0.41 point for the same period implying an emergence of an asymmetric society. This situation clearly demands for a foremost state intervention through the intensification of its redistributive policies, which ensures resources to shift from the affluent to the deprived segment of the society. To sum up, effective monitoring and evaluation of the development programs and projects must be accorded due priority for the success of the PRSP.

Affiliated to the National Planning Commission, Bhusal is currently pursuing Graduate Studies under the FASID/GRIPS Joint Graduate Programme, Tokyo, Japan. Please send your comments to [email protected] or [email protected]

(Editor’s Note: Nepalis, wherever they live, as well as friends of Nepal around the globe are requested to contribute their views/opinions/recollections etc. on issues concerning present day Nepal to the Guest Column of Nepalnews. Length of the article should not be more than 1,000 words and may be edited for the purpose of clarity and space. Relevant photos as well as photo of the author may also be sent along with the article. Please send your write-ups to [email protected])

Student unions affiliated to seven political parties have won the election of Free Student union (FSU) in majority of campuses affiliated to Tribhuvan University and Mahendra Sanskrit University.

Vote counting is still going on in some campuses including Central Campus Kritipur.

In Kathmandu Valley, single panels of NSU candidates won the elections at five campuses and ANNFSU at three campuses. Mixed results came out in the rest of the campuses.

NSU candidates led by Sovit Shrestha at Public Youth Campus, by Tika Bhandari at Padma Kanya Campus, Santosh Pandey at Pashupati Campus and Matina Shrestha at Maharajgunj Nursing Campus were elected, according to reports.

Similarly, ANNFSU candidates led by Nawaraj Thapaliya at Nepal Law Campus and by Anil Thapa at Sanothimi Campus were elected.

Mixed results came out at Balmeeki and Lalit Kala campuses. Candidates of ANNFSU Sudarsan Dhungana at Balmeeki campus and LB Lama at Lalitkala won as presidents while NSU and NSU (Democratic) candidates won the rest of the seats.

At Nepal Engineering Campus, Pulchowk, candidates of a joint panel of NSU and NSU (Democratic) led by president Janak Raj Joshi were elected.

At Sahid Manhara Campus, candidates of a mixed panel of Nepal Students Union (NSU) and All Nepal National Free Students’ Union (ANNFSU) led by President Saroj KC were elected.

Similarly, at Mahalaxmi Campus in Lalitpur, candidates of the ANNFSU were elected while at Gramin Adarsha, NSU candidates were elected.

A panel of Nepal Praja Parishad won in the Koteshwor Campus.

Meanwhile, ANNFSU panels were elected at Butwal Multiple, Lumbini Commerce, Ramapur Multiple, Rammani Multiple, Bhairahawa, Paklihawa (except secretary) and Gyodaya campuses in Rupandehi district. Candidates of an ANNFSU panel also won at Kumarwarti Multiple Campus in Nawalparasi district.

According to a report, candidates of a joint panel of ANNFSU and NSU won at the Institute of Forestry Science while candidates of NSU (D) and ANNFSU won at Makawanpur Multiple Campus in Makawanpur district.

According to reports from Pokhara, a NSU panel led by Prakash Tiwari won at Bindhyabasini Sanskrit Bidhyapeeth. Likewise, an NSU panel led by Binod Neupane was elected at the Institute of Forestry Science. Pokhara Nursing Campus however saw the victory of a joint panel comprising NSU and ANNFSU. Among them, ANNFSU has bagged three seats including president.

A joint panel of NSU and ANNFSU has won the election in Damak Multiple Campus of Jhapa district. Aindra Bikram Kerung of NSU was elected as president at the campus.

The joint panel of NSU and ANNFSU also won at Sunsari Multiple Campus, Inaruwa. Krishna Adhikari of NSU was elected president from the campus.

Likewise, candidates belonging to the seven-party alliance have jointly won at Panchthar Multiple Campus of Panchthar district.

Similarly, candidates of an NSU panel led by Durga Sapkota at Biratnagar Nursing Campus in Morang and candidates of an ANNFSU panel led by Giriraj Khatiwada at Pindeshwari Campus in Sunsari won the elections.

A joint panel of candidates associated with the agitating eight student unions won at Narayan Campus of Dailekh district.

Though the eight student unions had been advocating a friendly competition, the Nepal Students’ Union and the All Nepal National Free Students Union factions engaged in confrontation at Min Bhawan Campus and Nepal Commerce Campus.

Pawan Neupane, a student of Nepal Commerce Campus, suffered a broken limb when a group of students affiliated to the NSU took issue with him regarding fake voters.

Maoists detonated several powerful bombs at Kailali Custom Office at Dhangadhi and abducted five of employees of the office on Monday.

Among those abducted were Laxman Gautam, Bam Bahadur Khawas, Hari Lal Shahu, Mukhiya Mahadev Bhatta and helper Rajendra Bohra, district based security sources said. However, Bohra and Shahu came in contact with the security forces Tuesday morning.

The blasts caused damage to various rooms of the office including the visitors room, guardroom, store and residential quarters of the employees. The Maoists had asked the employees living in the residential buildings to vacate them before setting the bombs off.

A bomb disposal squad of security forces defused a bomb left by the Maoists on the premises of the custom office Tuesday morning. The Maoists also set off a bomb at the Trinagar police post that is situated near the customs office. No human casualty occurred as the cops are stationed there only in the daytime.

King Gyanendra who is in Pokhara for a three week long informal visit of the western region has granted audience to vice chairmen duo of the royal cabinet and some royalist leaders in Pokhara on Tuesday.

According to reports, the king discussed about the security and current political situation and party-palace relations during the meeting.

The King also granted audience to a number of political figures, including Kamal Thapa led Rastriya Prajatantra Party’s Ravindra Nath Sharma and leader of RPP (Nationalist) Rajeswore Devkota.

Though the matters discussed were not known, report quoted Devkota as saying that he advised the King to accommodate the political parties.

RPP leader Biswabandhu Thapa and Shesh Kant Adhikari, a political analyst previously associated with the Nepali Congress, also received royal audience, according to reports.

Speaker of the dissolved House of Representatives Taranath Ranabhat also reached Pokhara on Tuesday for royal audience. He is scheduled to get the audience Wednesday. While talking to the NC party workers in the capital before leaving for Pokhara, Ranabhat expressed optimism about correction in the political process in due course of time.

Ranabhat said that he will urge the King to move one step forward by taking the initiative for dialogue with parties.

It is not known whether the King will hold consultations with the leaders of the seven agitating political parties that are protesting against the royal takeover of last year demanding restoration of total democracy in the country.

Chairman of Rastriya Janashakti Party (RJP) Surya Bahadur Thapa has said that consensus among constitutional forces under the 1990 constitution is a must to save the country from a disastrous situation.

He urged the King to respect the recent verdict of the Supreme Court and take immediate initiative for dialogue and consensus, according to reports.

Presenting a working paper at party’s central committee meeting, Thapa said the country’s problem could be resolved once the constitutional forces (the king and political parties) are ready to play their role under constitution.

Thapa’s paper said the Supreme Court (SC) decision on the RCCC is a “great opportunity” for all the constitutional forces to come together for peace and solve the constitutional mess.

“Constitutional forces could not make an entry in the framework of the constitution just because the ruling establishment itself went out of the constitutional framework,” the paper presented by Thapa said.

A party leader quoted Thapa as saying, “The 12-point understanding reached between the seven-party alliance and the CPN-Maoist was the outcome of the intransigence demonstrated by the ruling establishment all along ignoring the call for due correction.”

Thapa also argued that the failure to abide by the 12-point understanding has benefited “extremist forces”.

The meeting will continue today.

President of the Nepali Congress-Democratic (NC-D) Sher Bahadur Deuba on Tuesday said that the Maoists rebels should scrap their so called ‘people’s court’ immediately.

While inaugurating the second convention of the Democratic Confederation of Nepalis Trade Unions (DECONT) in the capital, Deuba said that he would raise the issue during the meeting of the seven-party alliance, to be held very soon.

He also warned the rebels that the ‘people’s court’ could affect the implementation of the 12-point agreement reached between the alliance and the Maoists.

He said that court cannot be run by a single party in the name of giving justice to the people. “It should be independent like the Supreme Court,” he added.

He said that the rebels have begun killing people soon after the breakdown of the ceasefire and announced to take against various people. He demanded the end of death warrants.

Deuba, soon after his release from nine month long detention, had said that the 12-point understanding required review. However, the recent meetings of the NC and UML had urged the rebel leadership to abide by the 12-point understanding.

The Ministry of Information and Communication has permitted the Royal Nepal Army (RNA) to run FM stations throughout the kingdom.

According to a report by Kantipur Daily, the RNA will operate 10 FM stations meant to counter propaganda by the Maoist rebels.

The report quoted high level security sources as saying that the RNA will operate four FM stations with the capacity of one kilowatt and six others with the capacity of 250 watt. The ministry has not charged the license fees for registration of FMs. The license charge for an FM station of over 500 watt is Rs 500,000 and of over 250 watt is Rs 100,000.

The RNA had decided to run FM stations during the meeting of the central security committee in June.

There have been several reports of Maoists running mobile FM stations for propaganda of their activities in remote villages.

Crown Princess Himani inaugurated the exhibition of the national and international non governmental organizations (I/NGO) organised by the Social Welfare Council to mark the 56th Auspicious Birthday of Her Majesty the Queen, on Tuesday.

Crown Princess Himani observed various stalls of the exhibition with keen interest.

The exhibition organised by the Social Welfare Council for the first time will last for two days.

121 I/NGOs are participating in the exhibition.

The activities of I/NGOs relating to the disabled, women, children, renewable energy, environment, sanitation, drinking water, handicraft and awareness have been highlighted in the exhibition.

According to SWC, of the total 19,134 NGOs registered with the SWC, 10,911 are related to rural development, 3,166 related to youth service and 1,628 are related to women development.

Likewise, 642 NGOs relating to the child development, 64 relating to AIDS prevention, 1,033 relating to environment conservation and 1,610 NGOs working for the education, health and moral development have been registered at the Council.

Speaking at the inaugural function, Minister of State for Information and Communication, Shrish Shumsher JB Rana lauded the contribution of I/NGOs in various sectors.

He expressed confidence that credible and reliable performance of I/NGOs would help promote positive attitude in the society.

Volunteers from Nepali and Indian communities affiliated with Shree Radha Krishna Organization and Nepalese Association of Houston constructed the temple.

A press statement issued by the construction committee said, the Shivalinga, which is the mini-replica of the original Shivalinga in Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu was brought to Houston from Bhaktapur, Nepal.

“Devotees from all over the USA and UK thronged the temple, wave after wave, in a jubilant, festive mood to be part of the celebration,” the statement adds.

Nepalese from different parts of the state of Texas drove down to participate in the inauguration of the Nepali style temple.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Rajendra Shrestha, President of Nepalese Association of Houston said,” This temple sets a beautiful example of the Nepali and Gujarati communities coming together to achieve a common goal.”