People’s Participation

MINISTER for Finance Dr. Ram Sharan Mahat initiated the construction work of the building of Nepal Children’s Organisation amidst a function in Nuwakot the other day. Addressing the function Minister Mahat said that there is no dearth of resources for any individual or organisation to get involved in the social and development work in the country. It is true that the main motivating factor behind social and philanthropic work is the commitment to work for the people and the nation. At present efforts are on to accelerate the pace of social and economic development so that the people’s living standard could be improved. Besides the government, several international and national non-governmental organisations are actively involved in the social and economic development of Nepal. It has been realised that development is not possible with the efforts of government alone. The government builds infrastructure and creates a congenial atmosphere for social and economic development in the country. It is the people, community and civil society, which needs to be active and conscious in development activities and get involved in it. The more social and philanthropic attitude is developed, the more social and development is possible. The first step for the social and economic development of a society and the country is the consciousness about development and its concept. This consciousness mobilises the people for their own development. Development becomes sustainable only when people get involved in the development activities. It is thus the participatory approach towards development that is being emphasised these days. It is the role of civil society to generate awareness among the people about the concept of development and encourage people’s participation in the development activities. People are the central focus of development. Since development is for the people, it should be carried out by the people themselves. In the participatory approach of development, people are the most important and precious resource and if this resource is properly utilised and mobilised, the country and society can easily achieve the desired goal of development. As said by Minister Mahat, when people are actively involved in their own development, there will not be any scarcity of resources. The fundamental and most important thing for development is the motivation and consciousness. Thus, development activities need to be launched and implemented with active popular participation, which caters to the need of the people and makes the development project sustainable.

Safe Motherhood

WITH a view to share the process of developing the Birth Preparedness Programme and describe the steps to finalise the package for its use among communities, a meet of safe motherhood stakeholders was organised recently by the Ministry of Health, Family Health Division in association with the Centre for Development and Population Activities. The BPP, comprised of 15 pictures and action cards, is intended for use by community mobilisers to engage families in the early stages of pregnancy in a facilitated discussion of safe motherhood practices. Nepal is one of the few countries in the world with high death rates among mothers and pregnant women. One main reason for this is the glaring lack of health delivery services, especially in the rural areas where the vast majority of the people reside amidst poverty, want and illiteracy. Since rural life is indeed hard, even pregnant women have to contribute their labour just to meet their families’ food problem. This leaves them with little or no time to go for periodic check-ups to the health posts and centres—provided, of course, the pregnant women are allowed to go in for check-ups by their family members and that the health centres are there in their localities. As such, it is not uncommon to hear of pregnant women passing away due to pregnancy or delivery-related complications in the rural areas. Another is because of obsolete socio-cultural outlooks still adhered to by some communities concerning pregnancy and delivery. Even if mid-wives are there, some communities are still reluctant to ask for their services, leave alone let them examine their pregnant women.

However, such socio-cultural aberrations and anomalies are slowly receding, thanks to the concerted campaigns carried out by government and non-government organisations concerning safe motherhood practices. More so through adult and child literacy programmes, women-specific health-related schemes and environment, health and sanitation classes. Yet, the need to thoroughly sensitise the various communities, particularly the safe motherhood stakeholders, concerning safe motherhood practices is always there if the high death rates among mothers and pregnant women in the country are to be the figures of the past. As such, it looks to reason for all to forward their contribution to ensure the success of the BPP programme—which has been successfully tested in two localities—to be implemented on a nationwide basis from March 2002.