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नेपाली अनलाइन् पोटंल
Part-V
Nepal: Don’t Call It Shangri-La
Economic programs targeting refugees and returning displaced populations in Nepal
Special report on livelihoods field assessment about IDPs and refugees in Nepal
-Dale Buscher & Lauren Heller, Women’s Commission, USA
IV. Recommendations for donors, government and practitioners
IDP return
• Humanitarian assistance actors should link with development actors to implement comprehensive livelihood programs that include a direct hand-off of targeted beneficiaries from humanitarian agencies short-term inventions that focus on meeting basic needs to development agencies that works towards sustainable food security and broader economic development.
• Coordination and information sharing are vital between all livelihoods actors to enhance learning, the sharing of good practices, pitfalls, and strategies on working with local communities and government in order to design and implement the most effective programs possible and truly serve those in need with quality, sustainable programming.
• Livelihood programs must be market demand driven - requiring thorough market assessments that look at opportunities, costs, competition and constraints. An understanding of labor supply and demand is also vital for project design. Too often, interventions focus on increasing or enhancing the quality of the labor supply without address the often needed expansion of market demand to absorb growing supply.
• Livelihood programs need to include value chain analysis and development. Projects need to understand a targeted products value chain from supply input, production, processing, market linkages, wholesaling and exporting and where interventions can be most effective in strengthening the both the vertical (production to market) and horizontal (competition) value chain. Projects need to look at how value can be added to products closest to the bottom-end producer level and how additional top-end linkages can extend markets regionally, nationally and internationally.
• Community-based approaches are most successful and help build the peace. Interventions that serve impacted communities rather than just targeted returnees can reduce stigmatization and discrimination and promote community inclusion.
• Household economies must be understood and assessed. Many if not most family members contribute to the household economy. As such, household units, instead of individuals, need to be targeted so that interventions assist households with diversifying their economic activities and reducing their economic risks. Children and adolescents contributions must be taken into account so that interventions promoting increased school attendance can address income lost when the child is no longer working and put strategies in place to help households compensate.
• The most effective intervention may not be the from the agencies’ usual repertoire. At times, rather than implementing the usual menu of livelihood projects, the most effective intervention for promoting sustainable livelihoods might not be targeted directly to the beneficiaries but on broader, seemingly more peripheral elements that serve the beneficiaries only indirectly such as road construction to open markets to new producers; funding transportation systems to promote market access; facilitating the expansion of an existing small industry to expand employment options; and facilitating linkages between existing programs and emerging markets.
• Monitoring and evaluation need to include household level impact indicators. A child protection lens is vital in assessing program impact on such measurements as children’s increased nutritional status, school attendance, and access to health care as well as reductions in the worst forms of child labor. A gender lens is necessary to measure impact on the reduction of gender-based violence against women and the increase in their participation and decision-making at the household and community level.
• Donor funding cycles need to be extended. Quality livelihood programming requires extensive pre-design preparation – conducting thorough market and labor assessments, value chain analyses, and an understanding of the local social-political-economic context. Six and twelve month funding cycles do not allow for quality prep work and subsequently, for effective, sustainable program design. Funding cycles need to be both multi-year and more flexible with a focus on longer-term impact versus activities completed.
Refugees
• Livelihood programs need to understand and capitalize on the camp-based economy and prepare refugees to enter this informal economy, through training, grants and loans, as it may provide them the safest venue for income generation.
• Training programs need to be comprehensive and of sufficient length with quality instruction to provide the depth required to develop competence in a skill area. Basic, short-term training programs are seldom helpful. Successful vocational training programs are market-driven, have well-trained instructors and well-developed curricula, include pre-counseling preparation for targeted students on available opportunities, as well as certification, and post-graduation apprenticeships, job placements, start-up kits, and linkages with savings and loan schemes.
• Prepare refugees for employment in the local economy. As refugees work in the host communities despite government regulations to the contrary, training programs should prepare refugees to participate in these markets. Courses should focus on further enhance required skills in order to assist refugees with accessing more highly paid positions and on worker safety. As many refugees work in the construction sector locally, vocational training courses should include in-depth, quality courses on masonry, welding, electrical wiring, and plumbing.
• Design and implement training programs that prepare refugees for opportunities in third countries. Many, perhaps even the majority, of the Bhutanese refugees will be resettled to western countries, particularly the United States, over the next several years. Knowledge of this reality requires that involved agencies utilize the intervening months and years to adequately prepare refugees for the labor markets in countries of resettlement. Entry level positions for those with limited host country language ability often means starting in the hotel and restaurant industries as housekeepers, dishwashers, bus boys, and waiters. Opportunities also exist as nurses’ aides and attendants in hospitals and nursing homes. Factory and store stocking work are also frequent entry level positions. Vocational training programs should not only train refugees in these areas but in broader job seeking and employment readiness skills – financial literacy, expected work behaviors, and so on.
V. Next Steps for the Women’s Commission
This report serves as a case study of the challenges and opportunities that exist in both a refugee and post-conflict return setting. The Women’s Commission will use the findings from the field assessment to advocate with donors and operational organizations on funding priorities and on implementation of the report’s recommendations. The learnings will also inform the Women’s Commission’s research project on promoting appropriate livelihoods for displaced women and youth and will feed into the livelihoods field manual the Women’s Commission is currently developing for the international community. The field assessment findings will be presented at a number of fora and the report itself will be shared widely with the donor and humanitarian community including those working in Nepal.
Acknowledgements:
This report was researched and written by Dale Buscher, Director, Protection Program and Lauren Heller, Protection Program Officer at the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children and edited by Diana Quick, Director of Communications. Logistical support for the field assessment was provided by IRC – Nepal, UNHCR – Nepal, and Winrock International. The Women’s Commission’s livelihood project receives funding support from the U.S. State Department – Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
ANNEX 1
Organizations Visited:
Asia Network for Sustainable Agriculture and Bio-resources (ANSAB)
Bhutanese Refugee Children’s Forum – Beldangi I camp
Bhutanese Refugee Women’s Forum – Beldangi I camp
Bhutanese Refugee Women’s Forum – Goldhap camp
Bhutanese Refugee Women’s Forum – Sanischere camp
BRAVVE - Beldangi II camp
Caritas Nepal
Community Working Group of Ghumkhahare
Concern Worldwide
Federation of Women Entrepreneurs Association of Nepal (FWEAN)
District Administrator’s Office, Jhapa District
Government of Nepal – Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction
Government of Nepal – Refugee Coordination Unit
International Committee of the Red Cross
International Development Enterprises
International Organization for Migration
International Rescue Committee – Kathmandu
International Rescue Committee - Surket
Lutheran World Federation
Mercy Corps
Nepal Red Cross Society
Norwegian Refugee Council
Practical Action Nepal
Social Development Forum
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) – Kathmandu
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) – Damak
United Nations Resident/Humanitarian Coordinator’s Officer – Senior Gender Advisor
United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA)
Winrock International
World Food Programme
Youth Friendly Center – Beldangi I camp
Youth Friendly Center – Sanischere camp
End notes:
EarthTrends, Economic Indicators – Nepal, http://earthtrends.wri.org, 2003.
U.S. Department of State, Bureau of South and Central Asia Affairs, Background Note: Nepal, November 2007, http:www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5283.htm
U.S. Department of State, Bureau of South and Central Asia Affairs, Background Note: Nepal, November 2007, http:www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5283.htm
U.S. Department of State, Bureau of South and Central Asia Affairs, Background Note: Nepal, November 2007, http:www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5283.htm
Ibid.
U.S. Department of State, Bureau of South and Central Asia Affiars, Background Note: Nepal, November 2007, http:www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5283.htm
EarthTrends, Economic Indicators – Nepal, http://earthtrends.wri.org, 2003.
U.S. Department of State, Bureau of South and Central Asia Affairs, Background Note: Nepal, November 2007, http:www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5283.htm
U.S. Department of State, Bureau of South and Central Asia Affairs, Background Note: Nepal, November 2007, http:www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5283.htm
U.S. Department of State, Bureau of South and Central Asia Affairs, Background Note: Nepal, November 2007, http:www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5283.htm
Ibid.
United Nations Environmental Programme, Bleak Outlook for Environment in Kathmandu Valley, 25 January 2007, http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Deflaut.asp?DocumentID=498
Gurung, Harka, Nepal Foundation for Advanced Studies, Ethnic Democracy in Nepal, 10 January 1996, http://www.nepaldemocracy.org/ethnicity/ethnic_democracy.htm
South Asian Media Net, http://www.southasianmedia.net/nepal/nepal_religions.cfm
Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, http://www.internal-displacement.org
Ibid.
Deutsche Presse Agentur, Nepal Violence Unabated Despite Peace Pact, Heightened Security, 13 Feb. 2008.
Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group, Voices of the Internally Displaced in South Asia, December 2006.
South Asia Forum for Human Rights, A Pilot Survey on Internally Displaced Persons in Kathmandu and Birendranager, March 2005.
International Crisis Group, Nepal’s Fragile Peace Process, September 28, 2007.
Frelick, Bill, Human Rights Watch report published in the New Statesman, Jan. 2, 2008.
UNHCR Global Appeal 2008 – 2009, p. 233.
Interview with Ram Prasad Luetel, National Coordination Officer, UNOCHA, January 10, 2008.
Ibid.
Interview with Durga Nidhi Sharma, Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction, Government of Nepal, January 13, 2008.
Interviews with IDP families in Kathmandu valley, January 14, 2008.
Interview with Luke Colavito, Agricultural Program Coordinator, Winrock International, January 11, 2008.
This is additional income (from the off-season vegetable production) which supplements the income earned from the rice crops planted during the monsoon season.
Interviews with participating women in Nepalgunj, January 18, 2008.
Interview with Luke Colavito, Agricultural Program Coordinator, Winrock International, January 11, 2008.
Interview with Arend van Riessen, Mercy Corps, January 11, 2008.
According to Winrock International and partners’ project fact sheet, Distillation Unit, Chishapani2, Banke.
Interview with Ram Subedi, Advisor - Enterprise and Marketing, Asia Network for Sustainable Agriculture and Bioresources (ANSAB), January 14, 2008.
Interview with Marketing and Planning Committee in Kohalpur, January 18, 2008.
Ibid.
Based on focus group discussions in Beldangi I, Beldangi II, Sanischere, and Goldhap camps January 21 – 23, 2008.
Interview with a Bhutanese refugee woman who was a vocational training program graduate in the Goldhap camp, January 24, 2008.
Interview with male refugee in the Beldangi II camp, January 23, 2008.
Focus group with male vocational training graduates, Beldangi II camp, January 23, 2008.
Interview with Fr. Varkey Perekkatt, Field Director, Caritas Nepal, January 21, 2008.
Focus group discussion with refugee youth, Beldangi II camp, January 23, 2008.
Ibid.
Interview with UNHCR Damak staff, January 21, 2008.
Interviews with two refugee mushroom producers, Beldangi II camp, January 23, 2008.
Interview with FWEAN staff, Damak, January 21, 2008.
Interview with Susanne Kindler-Adam, Programme Officer, World Food Programme, January 21, 2008.
Focus group discussion with Bhutanese Refugee Women’s Forum members, Sanischere camp, January 22, 2008.
Interview with male refugee in the Beldangi II camp, January 23, 2008.
Interview with UNHCR Damak staff, January 21, 2008.
Interview with Economic Program Advisor, Concern Worldwide, Nepalgunj, January 19, 2008.
From Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorkha
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Nepal, http://www.mofa.gov.np/nepalun/statement10.php
Ibid.
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