In depth Analysis

Systemic crisis in Nepal imminent

Kathmandu: Published reports this week demonstrate the gradual paralysis creeping into our ten year old democracy which prompt the government, the parliamentary parties and the public at large to seek solutions from within and outside the system. Much attention was provoked this week by firstly, the Prime Minister's comments on the activation of the Security Council; secondly by reports on the possible use of the Army in Maoists affected areas and thirdly of the effects of such use. It appears that watershed has been reached on government policy regarding the Maoist and for Girija Babu particularly political solutions on the problem seem to have been made distant.

This despite visiting British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook's advice for political solutions on the crisis. For government, political solutions would seem to have been waived and so a crisis looms. By and large, talk of military solutions appears to have aggravated this sense of crisis among the lay public. It is known that significant section of Girija Babu's party is not keeping him company. It is known that the largest Left Party, the UML, is poised to agitate against him. It is known that Maoists gains threaten the mainstream Left parties. It is also known that the bulk of the centrist have been marginalized by the Congress-UML conducted elections.

These factors add to the government's paralysis. A UML alignment at heart of Congress people opposing Girija Babu puts him in a minority in Parliament itself. This number game may not show itself in Parliament but still will undoubtedly surface on the streets. Given also the fact that other political parties represented in Parliament will add to these numbers, Girija Babu's provocative hard-line would seem to be inviting trouble indeed.

It is not surprising therefore that much talk emanate from his quarters on the use of force to solve his problems. The Army, one might recall, is only among the latest tactical tool brought-up. Last week it was the creation of a new para-military force that dominated government demands.

These developments suggest the desperate search for an outlet in the Girija camp. There are other subtle indications also that there is desperation in the opposition camp as well to end the dangerous stalemate.

Nepal
Focusing on Poverty Reduction through Decentralization

A novel feature of Nepal's anti-poverty efforts---now a central objective of Nepal's development planning---is the link with an ambitious programme of decentralization and local empowerment.

Close to half the people in Nepal could be considered income-poor. Official statistics for 1996 estimate that more than 40% of the population is poor, while estimates based on a poverty line of $1 a day per person put the figure at more than 50%. Poverty is greater in rural areas, especially in higher-altitude and less accessible regions and among lower castes and ethnic minorities. Measures of human poverty tend to mirror the more traditional measures of income poverty.

A striking fact: income poverty in Nepal has increased since the late 1970s, mostly in rural areas. So for two decades growth has bypassed the rural poor. Advances in urban areas and their rural periphery have counteracted this trend.

What explains rural poverty? Lack of access to resources. The poor have low-productivity land, partly as a result of lack of credit and modern inputs, in turn a result of inadequate infrastructure and weak institutions. Lacking usable roads, farmers cannot obtain modern inputs or get their crops to market. Whatever services the government provides appear to be captured by better-off households because the poor are not well organized to defend their interests.

THE POVERTY STRATEGY: Poverty has been an underlying theme of all Nepal's development plans since the 1950s. The first attempt to formulate a separate plan for poverty was the Programme for the Fulfilment of Basic Needs during the Seventh Plan period, 1985-90, but political upheavals interrupted its implementation. With the restoration of democracy in 1991, poverty has again become a major objective of development planning. The Ninth Plan, for 1997-2002, singles out poverty as the sole development objective---an unusual arrangement.

The government follows a two-part strategy for poverty reduction. The first fosters broad-based growth to benefit principally the moderately poor, about 60% of all the poor. The second combines targeted programmes with social mobilization to reach the extremely poor.

The plan recognizes that mere acceleration of economic growth is not enough for effective poverty reduction---and that the composition of growth is important. Tourism and labour-intensive manufacturing are being promoted, but the main force for poverty reduction is faster growth in agriculture, which will stimulate employment in non-agricultural small and medium-scale enterprises. The plan is supporting the production of basic food staples in the plains of Terai and promoting livestock and higher-valued commercial crops in the hills and mountains.

PROBLEMS OF INEQUALITY: Greater equality in access to resources would help translate faster agricultural growth into less poverty, but the distribution of land ownership in the country has improved little despite decades of declared intentions. Part of the problem might be the inherently small plots, particularly in the hills and mountains, such that setting ceilings on ownership and redistributing to the land-poor cannot accomplish much.

An important source of new inequalities is the unequal access to education. The government is trying to meet the spending targets of the 20/20 Initiative for basic social services and is raising real social expenditures per person, but overall social spending remains low. More fundamental, the total budget is unusually low, with a revenue to GDP ratio of only 11%.

For anti poverty activities, the line ministries run sectoral programs, while the ministry of Local Development runs most targeted programs. The ministry is also responsible for strengthening local institutional development, such as bolstering the district and village development committees. There is naturally some overlap between the two sets of programmes. In addition, a Social Welfare Council, affiliated with the Ministry of Women and Social Welfare, has been set up to coordinate the activities of civil society organizations.

The diversity of actors demands more attention to coordination and to strong monitoring and evaluation. But monitoring and evaluation units have yet to be set up in most ministries, and the Poverty Cell in the National Planning Commission, established to monitor all poverty programmes, lacks the capacity to do so.

METHODS OF TARGETING: Nepal has used different methods to target the poor. One is to use an area-based programme to provide infrastructure to the more backward and isolated regions. Another is to target indigenous peoples, the oppressed and downtrodden (dalits), women and children. These programmes typically are small, and the benefits tend to go to the non-poor.

A third method is to use an entry point intervention, providing a service or asset---such as credit, infrastructure or institution building. Credit-based schemes in Nepal have suffered from mistargeting, declining repayment rates, high service delivery costs and inadequate institutional capacity. They have little sustainable impact on poverty even under the best of arrangements, unless accompanied by greater prosperity in the community.

Little attention has gone to "macro-micro" linkages. There is little recognition of how national policies can affect the implementation of small-scale projects---or of how the lessons from small-scale projects can help craft better national policies. One major lesson: the more successful programmes have devoted much attention, and often much time, to institution building---to decentralization of authority, social mobilization and empowerment.

PROGRAMME FOR DECENTRALIZATION: Centrally designed, administered and managed programmes, such as the Integrated Rural Development Programme, have little impact on poverty. By contrast, programmes implemented with the close involvement of beneficiaries---even when they incur more costs for delivery of services---tend to be more successful. Often these programmes rely on strong and effective local government institutions to coordinate multiple interventions.

The government has been decentralizing since the early 1980s, but only in the 1990s were these efforts married to building participatory local institutions. The real breakthrough came in the early 1990s with a multiparty system and new governance laws. Local bodies, with more authority and responsibility, have the power to collect more taxes and strengthen their administrative capacity. And substantial funds were granted to village development committees.

UNDP has supported these initiatives through the Participatory District Development Programme and the Local Governance Programme, simultaneously emphasizing social mobilization and strengthening local government. The test for these programmes lies in sustaining their achievements after the withdrawal of project funds. Will local communities continue to be empowered relative to the government bureaucracy? Will the poor continue to compete with the richer members of the community for the allocation of resources?

Nepal suffers from inadequate institutional capacity - Dr.Henning Karcher, UNDP

Kathmandu: A report on "Overcoming Human Poverty 2000" was launched Tuesday at the UN premises amidst a brief ceremony where the chief guest Prithivi Raj Ligal was missing for more than forty five minutes than the scheduled time. Honorable Ligal kept the guests waiting to the utter displeasure of the host organization-the UN System in Nepal. The pressmen invited to witness the launching ceremony practically left the venue as a mark of protest to the Nepalese VIP who usually feels pleasure in keeping his guests waiting for reasons known to him only.

The climax: Finally the chief guest, revealed UN sources, did not turn up at the venue and the report was later belatedly launched by yet another National Planning Commission stalwart, Jagdish Pokhrel. Perhaps it is a lesson for the UNDP, which normally invites those who are supposedly close to the government and the ruling party leaders.

Welcoming the guests, the UNDP Resident Representative, Dr. Henning Karcher opined that the launching of the report has been timely from both the global and Nepalese perspective as well.

"Nepal is fairing well in that the country has not only fairly exact figures on poverty but also a five year plan that has chosen poverty alleviation as its overriding objective", added Dr. Karcher.

He however said that in Nepal, credit based schemes have suffered from mis-targeting, declining repayment rates, high service delivery costs and inadequate institutional capacity.

The report launched Tuesday, contains a detailed assessment of 23 National Poverty Programs including Nepal. The report draws the attention to the novel feature of close and successful links between decentralization and local empowerment.

Dr. Karcher also divulged that the freshly concluded Paris meet arrived at a conclusion that Nepal's reform agenda needed ample focus on many of the governance related areas listed already in the UNDP report including fighting corruption and enhancing decentralization.

Recalling the proceedings of the Paris meet, Dr. Karcher said that poverty alleviation was at the heart of the discussions and many of the findings of the report match and conform squarely the joint diagnosis of both the government and the donor community as to why the development process in Nepal does not seem to be going in the direction it should have gone.

Bhattarai's dinner diplomacy; will it work?

Kathmandu : The biggest challenge to Prime minister Koirala emanates from his own party quarters. This could be clearly seen in the recent overtures of some congress stalwarts who have vowed to destabilize their own party government currently headed by Koirala much the same fashion as the latter had engineered for his political rival that is Prime minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai.

Impartial observers also hasten to add that Sher Bahadur Deuba though has apparently made it clear that he would in no way pose problems to Girija establishment but his association Monday in a pleasant mood in the congress rally that went up to party office in protest of the dissolution of the three district committee, bodes ill for Prime minister Koirala. Deuba is learnt to have shortened his countryside trip to attend this protest rally. Here lies the meaning.

"Deuba is perhaps playing double", said a congressite who frankly admits that he belongs to Koirala camp.

To recall, Deuba has just returned from the tour of some towns out of the valley that apparently had been convened to send signals to Koirala camp that his position in the party too couldn't be dismissed outrightly.

During the tour, Deuba is learnt to have convinced his supporters that the process, which President Koirala acquired for the ouster of Prime Minister Bhattarai, had been faulty.

In the process Deuba will go in for yet another tour in the near future of some more districts with the same message perhaps in his bid to garner more support for the ousted Prime minister. Undoubtedly, Deuba is a declared supporter of Bhattarai.

Yet another pretty disturbing news for Prime Minister Koirala has emanated from Bhattarai camp. Only the other day, former Prime Minister Bhattarai threw a "dinner party" for a selected few from the congress camp. Those who attended this "meaningful dinner" are learnt to be some from the Koirala camp that had voted in favor of Koirala at time of the parliamentary elections that facilitated Koirala to occupy Bhattarai's chair. Understandably this lot could presumably be those who felt cheated by Premier Koirala during the distribution of the ministerial portfolio. Interestingly enough, some of the sitting ministers also attended the sumptous dinner.

The meaning loaded dinner party discussed among others, the mobilization of the army to contain the Maoists' threats; allowing the Indian side to recruit its security personnel's at the TIA, the dismantling of Bhattarai constituted forums and the dismissal of Kathmandu, Syangja and Bhaktapur districts' committee.

In essence, Deuba is dead against the deployment of the army to the Maoists affected areas and hence what could be inferred that Bhattarai and the men at the dinner party too have toed the same line. It has already been clear that except the Koirala coterie, the rest of the congressmen differ on the army deployment agenda.

To recall, a fortnight back, a similar sort of "reception" had been thrown by Sher Bahadur Deuba, which was summarily rejected by the men currently in the Koirala camp for obvious reasons. The fresh dinner undoubtedly is full of meaning.

If the grievances of the three district committee which saw the abrupt dissolution were not addressed in a befitting manner then consider that the dinner party has achieved its goal among the crowd of many.

This Nepal, no bribe no work!

Kathmandu, April 24: A staggering percentage of the people of Nepal, 98.2 % to be precise, say there is corruption at every level and it is rising both in reach and intensity.

A majority (51.3 %) of the respondents of the opinion survey commissioned by the Media Services International (MSI) in the second half of January this year are of the view that corruption exists at very high level.

Those referring to the existence of corruption at high level, low level and very low level accounted for 41 %, 5.4 % and 0.6 % of the respondents respectively.

To the specific query if your work has ever been done without resorting to bribing, 44 % said "sometime", 23 % said "never", 16 % said "most of the time", 11.4 said "always" and 3.2 % said "not faced with a situation where bribing was involved."

Has your work ever been done after bribing someone? 60% of the respondents said "immediately", 13 % said "it took time" and 2 % said "no."

Seventy-five percent of the interviewees admitted having bribed someone in his/her life. If 22 % said they had never offered any bribe, 2 % did not say anything on the matter.

The poll also succeeded in finding out what percentage of the people offered bribe in what amount.

Rs. 100 to Rs. 1000 -- 35.3%

Below Rs. 100 -- 19 %

Rs. 1000 to 10,000 -- 15 %

Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 50,000 -- 4%

Rs. 100,000 and above -- 0.5%

Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 100,000 -- 0.4%

What made you offer bribe? Was it out of compulsion, was it done willingly, was it done by force? 61% said the bribe was offered out of compulsion, 11.2 % said it was offered willingly and 2 % said it was offered by force.

When the respondents were confronted with the question through whom did they offer the bribe, 54 % of the respondents said they offered it themselves, whereas 27 % said they offered it through others.

Finally, and once again, when the respondents were asked if they thought any work could be done in Nepal without bribing, 51 % said "no", 38 % said "yes" and 10 % did not want to say anything.

The survey that covered Kathmandu, Lalitpur, Bhaktapur, Morang, Jhapa, Chitwan, Kaski, Rupandehi, Parsa, Kailali, Kanchanpur and Banke was held between the period January 12 and 21, 2000. The sample size was 1197. Assistance in the form of a grant came from the London-based Westminster Foundation for Democracy.

Biratnagar ready to greet B'desh envoy

Kathmandu : All the necessary preparations to greet the newly appointed Ambassadaor of Bangladesh, H.E.Cyril Sikder, in Biratnagar has been completed, informed the Biratnagar Press Club to the Nepal-SAARC Journalists' Forum in Kathmandu, Tuesday evening.

Ambassador Sikder is leaving by the land route to Biratnagar on 27 morning. Madame Sikder and Ms. Sikder are accompanying him.

Counselor at the Bangladesh embassy, Abdul Kader Khan, is also in the Ambassador's entourage.

On April 28 morning, the Bangladesh envoy will have a short interaction with the local pressmen. Later, at the formal invitation of the Vice Chancellor of the Purvanchal University, Prof. D.N.Lal, the B'desh diplomat will address a gathering of the scholars there at the varsity premises.

Other programs include among others, a trip to a local soap factory, meeting with the local business men; visit to Mahendra Morang Multiple Campus; paying a courtesy call on the chief of the local district government and etc.

Professor D.N.Lal is throwing a luncheon in the honor of the Bangladesh Ambassador and the team members from Kathmandu.

During the evening, the Ambassador will throw a cocktail-reception in honor of the local dignitaries from various sectors of Biratnagar civil society.

The whole affair is being coordinated by Nepal-SAARC Journalists' Forum.

Chairman of the NSJF, N.P.Upadhyaya and founding executive member of the Forum Mr. P.R.Pradhan are also in the entourage.

The Fulbari Resort to develop Spa Fulbari!

Pampering of body and mind in the luxury program

The concept of upgrading its facilities continues at the Fulbari Resort. Consequently, the 100-acre property will soon have Spa Fulbari as its newest landmark in luxurious pampering of the guest’s minds and bodies through various soothing treatment methods. This makes The Fulbari Resort – the first and the only 5-Star Deluxe Resort Hotel in Nepal, outside the Kathmandu Valley, and the only one of its kind in Pokhara – also have the first comprehensive spa in all of Nepal.

Spa Fulbari will be a handsome and complementary addition to the invigorating and rejuvenating health farm that already exists at the Fulbari Resort.

Two separate agreements- one on the design and layout of Spa Fulbari & Spa.

Two separate agreements – one on the design and layout of Spa Fulbari, and the other on the Spa’s management and development –were signed between the owing company, The Fulbari Limited and the concerned parties during the first week of April 2000.

The design and layout will be carried out by Abacus of Thailand headed by Ms. Montha Li Lightbody as its Managing Director.Founded in 1976, Abacus Design is today recognized as a leading Thai design company, specializing in superior hotels, resorts and restaurants in Thailand and many cities of the world.

To be competed by September 2000, Spa Fulbari will be managed and developed by Ms Kornchanok Kavayapanik, a proven expert in luxury spa management and development along the Swiss and Bali traditions, which are currently vogue.

Spa Fulbari’s exotic ingredient will be its Himalayan glacial water. The fresh spring water is drawn from the Fulbari Resort’s subterranean sources at the Green Canyon above the Seti George in Pokhara. This unique water, obtained from the depth of 250 meters, will form the basis of the pampered luxury treatments catered to the Spa guests at the Fulbari Resort & Spa.

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