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नेपाली अनलाइन् पोटंल
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
न्यूयोर्क, February 29, 2008-The Women’s Commission conducted a field assessment in Nepal from January 8 – 26, 2008 which covered Kathmandu, the conflict-impacted Midwest Region, specifically the communities of Nepalgunj and Birendranagar and surrounding villages, and the Southeast Region around Damak, where the seven Bhutanese refugee camps are located.
Participants attending assessment report presentation program at Women Commission's office in New York City on February 28, 2008. Photos: eEyeCam
Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world. 82% of the population lives on less than $2 per day. Per capita income was $322 in 2006 and the literacy rate is 49%. Agriculture remains Nepal’s principal economic activity, employing over 71% of the population and providing 38% of GDP. Nepal receives substantial amounts of external assistance in the provision of grants and loans from India, the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan, Germany, and the Scandinavian countries. In fact, some 50% percent of the national development budget is funded by bi-lateral and multi-lateral foreign aid.
Mission Statement
The
Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children works to improve the
lives and defend the rights of refugee and internally displaced women,
children and adolescents. We advocate for their inclusion and
participation in programs of humanitarian assistance and protection. We
provide technical expertise and policy advice to donors and
organizations that work with refugees and the displaced. We make
recommendations to policy makers based on rigorous research and
information gathered on fact-finding missions. We join with refugee
women, children and adolescents to ensure that their voices are heard
from the community level to the highest councils of governments and
international organizations. We do this in the conviction that their
empowerment is the surest route to the greater well-being of all
forcibly displaced people.The Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children was established in 1989 to address the particular needs of refugee and displaced women and children. The Women’s Commission is legally part of the International Rescue Committee, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization. The Women’s Commission receives no direct financial support from the IRC.
Dale Buscher, Director, Protection Program at the Women’s Commission. Photo: eEyeCam
Executive Summary
As part of a three-year research project focused on promoting economic opportunities, often referred to as “livelihoods,” for displaced women and youth, the Women’s Commission undertook a three-week field trip to Nepal to review economic interventions developed to assist IDP (internally displaced person) return as well as promote economic opportunities and employment readiness skills for refugees in the Bhutanese refugee camps. The purpose of the trip was to get a snapshot of existing services, identify gaps, challenges, needs and opportunities – all of which will inform the livelihoods research project as well as a field manual for practitioners, which is currently under development.
Key Findings
*Longer-term development actors, who are including returning displaced persons in their projects, do better at implementing effective livelihood programs. This is based partially on experience, both in-country and with livelihood program design, and on having longer-term funding available that allows for more thorough pre-startup market assessments and value chain analysis.
*Humanitarian
assistance agencies continue to struggle with livelihood project design
and implementation. Market assessments, labor demand, available
opportunities, and emerging growth areas are seldom understood or
analyzed. Short-term funding cycles (as short as six months), make
project pre-assessments all but impossible and project implementation by
generalists impacts success and sustainability.*Coordination and information sharing among livelihood programmers and involved organizations must be improved. Organizations on-the-ground tend not to take time to learn from each other, share experiences – both successes and failures – and subsequently fail to build on past experience and existing good practice. Humanitarian assistance actors, with access to shorter-term funding and expertise in identifying and serving the vulnerable, should link with development actors for a stepped, referral approach to livelihoods programming. Humanitarian agencies should provide immediate, shorter-term assistance (such as vocational training, community infrastructure rehabilitation, cash for work, animal dispersal, seeds and tools) and ensure client access to longer-term economic interventions (such as micro-finance, agricultural support) provided by development actors.
Lauren Heller, Protection Program Officer at the Women’s Commission. Photo: eEyeCam
*Livelihood projects that target both the returnee (or former child combatant) and the host community tend to mitigate discrimination and promote community cohesion. In a country where IDP returnees are scattered over vast distances, individual targeting of assistance to IDP returnees tends to be less effective than targeting vulnerable returnees and host community members in communities impacted by return.
Participants attending assessment report presentation program at Women Commission's office in New York City on February 28, 2008. Photos: eEyeCam
*Market assessments and value chain development must be part of all livelihood program design. Livelihood projects must be market-driven and target those areas along the value chain (input supply, production, processing, wholesaling, and distribution) that provide opportunities. Interventions must understand and take into account the local context including constraints, such as minimal infrastructure and lack of market access, as well as existing opportunities such as the existence of high value products, adding value to current production through processing, and emerging changes in labor demand.
*Livelihood interventions must assess beneficiaries’ household economies and the economic contributions of various family members, including youth. Interventions must assist households with diversifying their economic activities, thereby reducing their economic risks should one livelihood activity be disrupted by the re-emergence of conflict, flood, drought or other calamity.
*Much more work needs to be done on monitoring and evaluation of livelihood programs to assess real, longer-term impact. Evaluations must go beyond reporting on numbers trained, loans given, and re-payment rates. Livelihood projects should include household level indicators to measure impact on the household’s food security, the children’s nutritional status, school attendance and health care access, as well as the woman’s risks of gender-based violence and participation in household decision-making.
*Donors must re-think their funding timelines if they want to promote effective, market-driven, sustainable interventions. Six and twelve month funding cycles do not allow adequate time for well-planned interventions that are based on thoughtfully carried out market and labor market assessments and value chain analysis.
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