Wednesday, January 18, 2006

By Rajeeb L Satyal, Kathmandu

“Failure is a synonym of success, not its antonym; we can not repair prototype with stereotype”

 More alarming than the poverty, deaths from insurgency, disasters, epidemics and HIV/AIDS are the eroding sense of originality, creativity and uniqueness. In fact all the other problems in the society emerge due to lack of them. Lacking these qualities  is like lacking vitamins and micronutrients that fights with social ailments to keep the society healthy.

 The greatest need of the time is to protect and promote individuality, originality, experimentation, and uniqueness” which are scarce at all levels of society, right from ordinary citizen to school teachers, journalists, politicians, engineers, architects, film directors, trainers, executives, artists, bankers, women’s groups and I/NGOs. It is the second nature to avoid experimentation because the minds are already pre-conditioned to play safe, copying and imitating things that have mass approval. Most of us have been trained, conditioned to follow, copy, and imitate; not to create, experiment, and take risks.

 We easily fall for clichés- either imposed or created to serve vested interests of a powerful few. We typically use clichés, not because we understand or believe in cliché; we use them because of mass approval. It’s like pretending to give and take something that is nothing. We continue to use them even when they fail to deliver the desired results, and bring any positive impact in the lives of common people. It’s high time that the international organizations, donors, government, media and civil society take more of exploratory and innovative approach, and provoke new ideas, solutions and experimentations to help them come out of vicious cycles.

 The quality of education should be improved to provoke students to be original, experimental and unique; not to copy, imitate and follow. Learning should take place beyond class rooms. Teacher’s role should be redefined beyond traditional methods of dictating notes and assigning homework to students. Primary school teachers should stop physically punishing unique students who do not subscribe to their expectations. The prerequisite for higher studies should include 1-3 years of professional experience or research in the field of specialization.

 It should be made mandatory even for school graduates to take some paid work, or to take entrepreneurship ventures for at least for 6-12 months before joining colleges; it will expose them to the real world, apart from creating a sense of responsibility and dignity of labor.

 Media, journalists should start investigative reporting to bring original news and facts before the public. Televisions should also come up with new experimental programs that are more refreshing to people, than remaking of some well known TV serials in native language. Success of any film directors or artists lies in how creative they can be.

 All the answers to our problems lie outside the box we are in. We simply can not copy others’ solution to solve our unique problem. Only way to do it is to create new path to success, through innovation, creativity and experimentation. Failure is a synonym of success, not the antonym.

 By Rajeeb Lal Satyal

Village Tourism: A Preliminary Thought for Nepal

- Dr. Shoorabeer Paudyal, Associate Professor, Padmakanya Campus, T.U.

Background

Village can be depicted as a real face of Nepal since it preserves its own cultures, life styles, values, traditions and institutions. However, the people, especially youths from near by village attracted to the urban life style. The number of people living in 3915 Village Development Committees exceeds 86 percent of the total population in the country. Farming is the major economic activities of the people living in village and so far non-farm economic activities are very rare in these villages. Disguised unemployment is overwhelmingly large in agriculture sector. With the relatively high growth rate of population, the entrance of large number of new faces into the labor force overburdened the farming sector leading to more lesser productivity and fueling the problem getting the worse from bad. The ultimate resultants so far are mass poverty, hunger, disease and deprivation translated into greater dissatisfaction, rural to urban migration, foreign employment and so one. These have greater implication in the national economy in both short run and long run. The escape from these miseries is, no doubt the development of the non-farm economic activities in the village including village tourism.

2. The Concept of Village Tourism

2.1 Village Tourism and its Objectives

Village tourism is more or less need based community tourism in rural areas. It is the need based approach because village needs to have more jobs to be created and revenue to be generated. The community needs to have developed the alternative more productive non-farm activities to switch off the excess labor force from less productive farming sector. Tourism itself creates direct employment and income for the community through the tourist catering services such as trekking, guiding, touring, and entertaining and so on. Besides, it can generate indirectly other non-farm economic activities such as micro business enterprises, local arts and crafts, food processing enterprises, tea shops, and others in the community.

In view of above discussion, the general objective of village tourism development is the socially and economically sustainable development of the rural area while the particular objectives are to generate income and employment for the villagers, establish and sustain the cottage industries based on local resources, establish and develop the micro business, to revitalize demolishing local arts and crafts, to learn good positive things from visitors, to preserve the social and cultural heritage of the community, to impress the visitors from our customs, traditions, human values and guest friendly behaviors.

2.2 Village Tourism: How to Develop?

Village tourism is one of the non-farm economic activities which demands continuous efforts of the community for the job done. Although it is not individual entrepreneur's job done once for all type effort, some knowledgeable individuals are expected to take the lead role in overall community efforts before and after take off the process of the tourism development. Mobilizing community in the village for tourism development necessarily requires institution which could imparts knowledge and importance of the sector and thereby generates zeal among the fellow people for the development of the village tourism. The people in village themselves should feel that they really need tourism, identify the tourist resources, analyses their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats; and formulate and implement the tourism plan for themselves and their community. In view of this first of all, the formulation of a local team such as village tourism committee in order to develop village tourism is a must, which can take the lead role in organizing tourism activities. They will organize the meeting among villagers and encourage fellow villagers to participate in open discussion about why they need tourism and what are the benefits and costs of the tourism. This type of participatory approach will generate enthusiasm among the villagers for the development of the tourism. Next step perhaps is the survey of the tourism inventory in the village. Several meetings and discussions can help to figure out such inventories that is, the list of the products they have to offer to the tourists. However, such offer should not be need based only, its social and environmental costs should be considered seriously. In other words, the products incurring higher costs to the community than benefits should be left once for all. The other products incurring lesser costs than benefits should be selected. They should be sure about the costs that will come with the tourists but for this they should develop the check and balance mechanism to lessen such type of costs. As the community agreed about the products to be offered to the tourists the process of the development of the tourist products should be launched at priority basis. For this, the village tourism committee necessarily need business plan before they go for operating tourism activities, which includes the selection of the products to be developed in near future, set yearly targets of the products, establish the funding source and skills development training and so on. Third step may be the selections of the visitors by type which largely determined by the products they can offer to the visitors. Accordingly they should go for the marketing of their destination and products. For this, the committee has to formulate market plan for products consisting marketing strategy. It should develop links with tour operators, NTB and Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation in Kathmandu.

3. Potentialities of Developing Village Tourism

Tourism in today's world is one of the most flourishing economic activities. World tourism expected to grow by 5.4 percent per annum generating US $ 6,201.5 billions of economic activities in 2005. Nepal is one of the few tourism destinations with higher potentialities in the world. In view of the higher potentialities and unrelenting efforts of NTB and private sector, current decline in the tourism can be expected to reverse in the days to come. So far as the prospects of the sending tourists into the village community is concerned, security reasons can come as a barrier in immediate future. However, the country has enough potentialities which mainly come from the bio diversity and cultural diversity in the village community. Despite her small in size, mother nature is so kind giving so many type of flora and fauna which are the major strengths of the village community to attract visitors from outside. Besides, every village has unique scene and scenery from where one can have the panorama view of the range of the snow capped Himalayas providing the heavenly pleasure to the visitors. People's tradition and culture differs from one caste and ethnic group to another group which can lure the visitors for the repeated visit into the community. The rural people's means of entertainment, such as folk songs and dances can 6e another subject of attraction in such community and living cultural programme can be organized for the tourists. Besides, trekking, visiting cultural monuments, sightseeing, walk around, camping in jungle, study of flora and fauna, art and crafts, swimming and canoeing, honey hunting, and watching birds can be among the products that can be developed in the communities in the villages.

4. Problems of Village Tourism

4.1 Arrival Trends

Tourist arrivals recently declined by 3$ percent on the average. Among the major markets, decrease in arrivals from Japan is recorded the highest (45%). Even the arrivals from Indian market have decreased by 33 percent. The state of emergency, insurgency, fragile conditions of national carriers and ineffective marketing might be among the reasons for sliding tourism in the country. Since the visitors in the village is the subset of the overall tourist arrivals in the country, the decreasing trend of the arrivals in the country can be the problems in the development of the village tourism in the country.

4.2 Transportation and Communication

Transportation is necessary for accessibility of the tourists into the tourist destination. Tourist destination in village should be linked with the one of the major tourist hubs by at least 6y one of the modes of transportation mainly by road. However, all the villages in the country are not linked with the road transport. To curb this problem, strategically the selection of the village near the road accessibility can be a better idea for the ushering development of tourism in rural areas. The selection of the village with the already developed tourist related products, such as community managed forests and others are added benefits.

4.3 Knowledge and Capital

NTB can impart knowledge and give on the spot training for the technical know how about the tourism. The department of Cottage and Small Industries can help for the art and craft development. The community can borrow money from the Grameen Bank and financial intermediary. Moreover, community can invite the outsiders for the joint venture enterprises for the product development in the community. Generally the liaison of Village tourism committee with the Village Development Committee, local based NGOs INGOs and DDC can enhance the development efforts.

4.4 Marketing and Lobbying for Fair Share

Marketing is the difficult job which plays crucial role in the business. NTB, travel and tour operators should be positive in the marketing the village destination. Although it might not be in the interest of all tour operators to send tourists into the village community. However, some other benign operators can be convinced to send tourists into the rural community. Moreover, NTB and Ministry through the members of parliament and UDC leaders can he lobbied for getting fair share by the village community from total arrivals in the country.

5. Conclusion

Tourist arrivals in village community are start of the business. The future of business depends on the good management of the arrivals and visitor's satisfaction during their stay with the community. The arrivals creates demands for the local goods and tourist products which in turns generate employment and income which are the means to increase the standard living of the community members. However, such increase in the standard of living should not compromise, in any case, with the social values, culture and environmental degradation, since it is closely linked with the sustainability of the tourism development. The success of village tourism mainly lies on the community's joint efforts and also depends on theattitudes and supports of government and NTB at thecentre. If NTB could not serve the purpose, alternative apex body at the centre should be sought.

Next, village tourism should not taken in isolation rather should be viewed as an integral part of the overall community development. Infrastructure developed for village tourism can be utilized as a means for the development of the other sector in the community and vice versa. Text courtesy: VITOF-Nepal publications 2005-ed.

Corruption is only a part of the complex pathology, though an integral part, inflicting human society today

Dr. Devendra Raj Panday Past President, Transparency International Chapter, Nepal

Corruption is a complex human and social phenomenon in a complex world with a complex history. The complexity of the world system dominated by the then superpowers competing for regional and global hegemony obscured corruption as an issue for development until the 1990s. In a world, where post-colonial interest in "international development" had already emerged with the end of the world war in the mid-1940s, this late realization of the importance of corruption as a factor in development indicates in some way the contradictions that surround the global development enterprise. Some development practitioners and scholars had been raising this issue from the 1960s as can be seen from the literature on corruption that developed around that time especially on Africa. But the subject remained outside the general development discourse for a long time. Gunnar Myrdal who popularized the concept of "soft state" and its relation to corruption in his monumental work, Asian Drama, lamented that the "diplomatic bias" against research on corruption adversely affected the strategies and outcomes of development efforts in Asia. Be this as it may, one can take some satisfaction that the situation changed about a decade ago in the positive direction, as can be observed in the informative pages of this book.

For a corruption-endemic country that is also highly dependent on international aid, a proper understanding of the policies of the donors should be a starting point for any debate about their contribution to corruption or to the battle against it. It is, also good to know that the donors in Nepal and around the world, who have essentially been partners-in-sin together with their counterparts in the recipient countries in the past, have now decided to contribute to help contain the long-neglected, long-lamented scourge. One also hopes that this commitment is not wasted away under the weight of history that has not recorded the outcomes of shifting strategies and priorities of the international aid system as it operates in the real world in a positive light as far as the poor and oppressed communities and peoples of the developing world - the real victims of corruption - are concerned.

The governance paradigm that provides the foundation for all donor policies and approaches against corruption has been an important source for reform programmes considered necessary for greater effectiveness of international aid and development initiatives. In several cases, the donors have also committed themselves to monitor and control abuses of authority within their organisations and project activities. In Nepal where nearly every important donor prefers to come up with its own development strategy paper, notwithstanding the harmonizing role allowed in recent years to Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) of the government, it is natural that the articulations of respective anti­corruption policies by the donors also differ at least in emphasis. Often, one can also observe differences in the way a particular donor might identify the "real" cause of corruption that affects its perspective on how to proceed against it. Nevertheless, one can glean and find a commonality among the various approaches of the donors.

In addition, some donors emphasize the value of relating anti-corruption programmes directly to their approaches to economic reforms towards further liberalization of the economy, rapid privatization of the public sector undertakings and the general need, as they see it, to link Nepal's economy and its activities to the opportunities and competition for economic efficiency in the global marketplace. On the other hand, the anti-corruption policies of some other donors seem more clearly inspired by their commitment to reduce poverty, enforce justice and protect human rights. Most importantly, with the involvement of a relatively large number of donors in anti-corruption and governance reform programmes, the donors are with "bad" culture and general "underdevelopment". Unfortunately, not only the donors but important global civil society institutions such as our own Transparency International also are not sufficiently sensitive about this issue.

Not that the donors can be expected to help us change everything that needs to be changed in the country to effectively control corruption. For example, the donors can do little about the fact that our rulers including the kings and princes and the luminaries in the legislature, judiciary and the executive are fully oblivious to any notion of conflict of interest. What they can do, however, is to make sure that they do not create a wrong impression that the nominal accountability structures created or strengthened through their assistance can make up for this basic deficit in the moral and political outlook of the national ruling class. They can also make sure that their interventions facilitate not hinder the work of the national social and political leadership for necessary fundamental reforms in the country. If fighting corruption is a part of a campaign for social and political reform the responsibility for leading the process in thought and action clearly lies with the country's social leadership. But, then, autonomously driven and voluntarily executed leadership is becoming a rapidly vanishing vocation in societies full of consultants, specialists, professionals and professional NGOs. The donors can also make sure that their well-intended efforts based on the principles of rationality and the value of appropriate structures of incentives and disincentives do not further crowd out such essential role from the society.

At the end of the day, corruption, conflict or development is a moral issue, at least, for those who believe in peaceful and democratic resolutions of contradictions that become a constraint to change. The choice is between being more cynical about democratic ideals and social progress and having the wisdom and perseverance to approach and realize them by re-examining our own methods and approaches. For all the advancements in social science and the contributions of the "knowledge industry", we are ignorant to this day of the ways and means of institutionally reconciling liberal democracy with social equality. To this day we do not know how to accommodate self-oriented human nature to the demands of social responsibility, even as merrily we may propound the theory that personal utility maximizing individuals also fulfill the public good. Any serious commitment to control corruption requires that we do some fresh thinking and studying in these areas too.

After all, it is not as if all is well in the world and only corruption is spoiling the party. Corruption is only a part of the complex pathology, though an integral part, inflicting human society today. There are wars and conflicts everywhere, with hardly any continent and country, rich and poor, being an exception. Hundreds of millions of people including children are forced to live or perish in inhuman conditions. Direct crimes against humans and humanity regularly take place in the world for social, cultural and political reasons or for reasons of the so-called faith. There are "wars to end all wars" but the wars keep coming aided by a widespread armament industry that values profit more than human life or the human spirit. The same is the case with terror engineered and executed by both the state and non-­state actors. "And" as the late Robert Heilbroner said in anguish in some other context, "we thought [the twentieth century] was going to be the century of enlightenment"!

The world is not totally lacking in enlightenment, however. One could muster all the necessary enthusiasm one needed to fight subversive thinking and policies by just watching the performance and peoples' participation in the Live 8 Concert recently held in ten important cities of the world to raise awareness against poverty and to warn the leaders that they better make poverty a matter of history now. In other words, there is plenty of enlightened human self-interest in the world. We only need proper leadership to harness it.

If we have grasped anything from our experiences in the most "instructive century in modern civilization", therefore, the strategies and policies against corruption as narrated in the following pages may be a part of the necessary work to be done. But we need to do much more, morally, intellectually, and politically to proceed, without distraction and further waste to the direction we really want to go. We can hope that the growing interest in corruption studies in Nepal and elsewhere will lead to further contributions on the subject-some hopefully inspired by a wider, "emancipatory interest" as indicated-that should eventually enlighten us fully in this respect and enable us to attack corruption effectively.

Forward written by the author for Dr. Rabindra Khanal's fresh publication entitled, " Donors Policies Against Corruption in Nepal".. Thanks the author and Dr. Khanal-ed.