INTERNATIONAL

China has for many years, taken an active part in Nepal’s water resource development

-Mr. Zeng Xuyong, Chinese Ambassador, Kathmandu

It’s my pleasure and honor to attend this talk program and make a brief remark on China-Nepal cooperation in energy development and its prospects.

It is well known that Nepal is extremely abundant in water resources and has tremendous potentiality in exploitation and utilization of these resources. According to statistics, Nepal possesses 83,000 megawatts hydropower potential, 50% of which is feasible for exploitation and utilization. The realized generating capacity now is about 300 megawatts, amounting for about 1% of Nepal’s total energy consumption. Most of electric power available presently is used to meet the needs of the urban population, and the vast rural areas are badly short of electricity. These facts indicate that Nepal still has great potential in exploitation and utilization of water resources as well as of energy resources as a whole. The government of Nepal has fully recognized the importance and urgency of energy development, and introduced a series of policies related in its Ninth Five year Plan, encouraging local and foreign investors to actively participate in the development and construction of hydropower projects. It is also noted that the government had drafted a Water Resource Policy 2000 recently to further improve investment environments. We believe that with the appearance of more and more relevant government policies, there will be more favorable environments for the development, construction and administration of water resources.

As a friendly neighbor, China has, for many years, taken an active part in Nepal’s water resource development and construction by grant assistance and contract projects. The Chinese government built the Sun-Koshi hydropower station and Pokhara irrigation system gratuitously in 1970s. Since 1980s Chinese companies have participated in the construction of more hydropower projects such as Marsyangdi, Indrawati and Modikhola hydroelectric plants. The latter has been formally inaugurated just a few days ago. The other two large Chinese company-contracted projects under construction are the 3,600-kilowatt Bhote Koshi hydropower station and the irrigation project located in Sunsari district of east Nepal. A Chinese company signed with Nepal Electricity Authority the agreement on Upper Modi hydroelectric project this year, which is the first Chinese BOT investment in Nepal’s power construction.

All the above projects have good economic returns and social effects. China-Nepal cooperation is fruitful and effective in developing Nepal’s hydropower sector. China will continue its active participation in the exploitation and utilization of water resources of Nepal. There are broad prospects of such cooperation in various forms including grant assistance, contract projects, and BOT.

I would like to, combining China’s experiences in solving energy shortage problem in its economic development and construction with Nepal’s actual conditions, express two ideas on further enhancing and expanding our economic and technological cooperation in energy field.

First, according to the local conditions, devote more efforts to developing small-scale hydropower station of kilowatts, dozens of kilowatts or hundreds of kilowatts in remote mountain districts or inconveniently located areas of Nepal, so as to promote their economic development and prosperity. China also has a lot of mountains. Shortage of energy and electricity is one of the ‘bottle-necks’ hindering the rapid and sustained economic development of some remote mountain areas in China. To solve this problem timely and effectively, mini-hydropower stations have been developed extensively in the country on the basic specific needs. The stations play positive roles in promoting local economic development and improving people’s lives. At the same time, technologies on mini-hydropower have been fully developed. Some remote areas of Nepal are abundant in water resources, but traffic conditions there are very difficult. The mini hydropower construction, which features little investments, quick effects and flexible applicability, could meet the demands of individual village or district in such conditions for developing economy and improving people’s life.

Second, solar energy, wind energy and bio-gas energy could be exploited in areas without sufficient advantage or exploitation value of water resources. Solar and wind energy may be regarded as the most easily obtained and universally used energy in the nature. Solar heaters may be used to fulfil some household needs, and wind energy may be harnessed to generate electricity. Both energies are widely used in some parts of China. As for biogas, it is a kind of flammable gas obtained by fermentation treatment from house refuse and waste of animals and plants. Biogas technology can recycle wastes, save energy and reduce damage and felling of forests. It is conducive to environment protection and sustainable economic development. Since China has got ripe experiences of applying the above technologies, we can work together and spread it in Nepal according to local needs.

Energy is of great importance to the development of every country, especially to Nepal. Because the major part of Nepal’s energy consumption-petroleum products are totally dependent on imports. The continuous growth of consumption of petroleum products and increase of international oil price make Nepal to pay more of its foreign exchange reserves for imported oil products. So, it is of great significance to Nepal’s long-term economic development to accelerate exploiting Nepal’s rich hydropower resources, spread the utilization of multiple alternative energy so as to reducing its dependency on imported petroleum products.

Looking in to the future, China-Nepal cooperation in energy development, especially in hydropower resources development will certainly be further developed and expanded.

"The changing world of work: preventing digital dictatorship"

-Yves Lasfargue, Director of Studies at Crefac, France

Mobile office, multi-tasking, new forms of stress, re-evaluation of the work and structure of companies, a fresh approach to time management and use of space…Yves Lasfargue, director of studies at Crefac and Denis Ettighoffer, an organization and management consultant, examine the changing world of work under the impact of information technologies-Chief editor

The building of the information society is accompanied by changes in working methods and types of work. But this is not technological determinism, since the same technologies do not produce the same effects. It all depends on how they are combined with other and generally less spectacular, but often just as-or more-important innovations: political, commercial, organizational and social innovations. Despite this non-determinism, we can observe some major changes associated with the widespread use of the ICTs-information and communication technologies.

On the one hand, we are moving towards an increasingly abstract and interactive way of working. Such work is done on the digitalized representation of reality appearing on the computer screen, and no longer in physical reality, and often consists of a man-machine dialogue-40% of users spend more than four hours a day in front of a screen. Sitting down to work is thus becoming the working position of most people.

On the other hand, contrary to the claims of the ‘technocrats’ who would have us believe that ‘the Internet abolishes time and space’, work requires increasingly delicate time management. Indeed, ‘cutting edge’ technologies are terribly time consuming. At the same time, networking makes space management increasingly difficult, since you have to choose between remote activities and those, which can only be efficient on the spot. Teleworking and mobile working have to be balanced by human contact with colleagues and partners.

Lastly, we have to accept having to deal with the vulnerability of systems, whose fragility is linked to a growing complexity. Hence the necessity of knowing how to deal with the numerous unpredictable events-breakdowns, hacking, viruses, fraudulent attacks, etc.

These changes in job descriptions have consequences for the way live and work. The widespread use of the new technologies, added to the certain ways of reducing working hours, makes some activities more intensive. This is why an examination of working conditions today has to include an evaluation of the balance of time, working, social and private and of the workload.

We can observe the development of ‘ergostress’, that combination of physical and mental fatigue, of stress and pleasure, which is on the way to becoming the established new work measurement unit.

The development of distance working, of interactivity and vulnerability has contradictory consequences depending on the industry and the individual: a source of inclusion and qualification for some, especially for ‘technofreaks’, a source of exclusion or disqualification for others. The widespread us of the ICTs risks increasing the numbers of the excluded: the illiterate, ‘technophobes’, who can not cope with a new language, or interactivity or crashes, the physically disabled who are now finding themselves joining the economically excluded, because they can’t afford to finance the necessary equipment.

The growth in the use of the digitalised information, automated distribution, e-commerce, and remote dealings with public services, is a positive change for ‘technofreaks’ and for a large proportion of the population. But this use should not be imposed on every one, and we should all have physical, non-virtual and non-digitalised channels of communications available to us. The successful building of the information society will occur through the rejection of ‘digital dictatorship’.