Summary Report - Consultations with Stakeholders - 2009-2010 1 I. Introduction The Asian Development Bank (ADB), UK Department for International Development (DFID), and the World Bank (WB) held joint country consultations held in October- November 2008 with the aim to get insights from a wide range of stakeholders on what role they should play in supporting Nepal's development efforts. After the joint consultations, all the three agencies have developed their Country Business/Assistance Plans for their programs in Nepal. The three agencies decided to go back to the stakeholders and share these plans with them and seek their suggestions on how the proposed strategies could be effectively implemented. In this context, ADB contracted HURDEC (P). Ltd. to design and implement the consultation events. This report summarizes the findings and outcomes of the discussions and is organized as follows. The first part of the report summarizes the overall findings, and next part presents a summary of the recommendations from each event. The list of participants is annexed to this report. II. Locations and Process All the consultation events took place from December 2009 till April 2010. Consultations were held with the following stakeholders and locations: • Private Sector • Youth • Civil Society • Women and Excluded Groups • Nepalgunj • Pokhara • Biratnagar • GON Secretaries. In the locations outside Kathmandu, two events were held - one with community groups (CBOs, users' groups, women groups etc.); and second with district level political leaders, district line agencies, INGO/NGO representatives, project/program staff, youth and journalists. In each location, participants came from an average of 15 districts. Refer below for a map of Nepal showing districts from where participants attended the events.
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Summary Report - Consultations with Stakeholders - 2009-2010
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I. Introduction The Asian Development Bank (ADB), UK Department for International Development (DFID), and the World Bank (WB) held joint country consultations held in October-November 2008 with the aim to get insights from a wide range of stakeholders on what role they should play in supporting Nepal's development efforts. After the joint consultations, all the three agencies have developed their Country Business/Assistance Plans for their programs in Nepal. The three agencies decided to go back to the stakeholders and share these plans with them and seek their suggestions on how the proposed strategies could be effectively implemented. In this context, ADB contracted HURDEC (P). Ltd. to design and implement the consultation events. This report summarizes the findings and outcomes of the discussions and is organized as follows. The first part of the report summarizes the overall findings, and next part presents a summary of the recommendations from each event. The list of participants is annexed to this report. II. Locations and Process All the consultation events took place from December 2009 till April 2010. Consultations were held with the following stakeholders and locations:
• Private Sector
• Youth
• Civil Society
• Women and Excluded Groups
• Nepalgunj
• Pokhara
• Biratnagar
• GON Secretaries. In the locations outside Kathmandu, two events were held - one with community groups (CBOs, users' groups, women groups etc.); and second with district level political leaders, district line agencies, INGO/NGO representatives, project/program staff, youth and journalists. In each location, participants came from an average of 15 districts. Refer below for a map of Nepal showing districts from where participants attended the events.
Summary Report - Consultations with Stakeholders - 2009-2010
LEGEND Districts Nepalgunj Pokhara Biratnagar III. Summary The questions for group discussions were quite similar in almost all events and focused on how the three agencies could effectively implement their programs give the external factors such as poor law and order situation, political unrest, instable government etc. In Biratnagar the questions focused on issues related to procurement and implementation of road related projects. The overall recommendations from participants are shown in the box below:
• Greater involvement of community, youth and the private sector in design
and planning, implementation and M&E of projects and programs • Strengthen communication with communities: more information flow from
GON and donors to community, and also vice versa • Improve coordination between GON and civil society • Implement targeted programs women, excluded communities/groups and
areas/regions • More transparent mechanisms to curb corruption in infrastructure related
procurement and implementation • Robust program design - appropriate area and beneficiary selection so that
poor get the maximum benefits.
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III. Process and Outcomes 3.1 Opening, Background and Summary of Country Plans The Heads/Representatives of the three agencies welcomed the participants and highlighted the objective of the consultations. They highlighted that this was the first time the agencies were going back to the stakeholders to give feedback on how their inputs had been incorporated in the respective country plans. Following this, the facilitator made a brief presentation on the outcomes of the previous year's consultation events highlighting the main priorities from all groups and in particular the specific priorities suggested by the group of participants. A staff from one of the agencies (except in the case of meeting with Secretaries in which the Country Director of World Bank) made a presentation on the main highlights of the country plans with special reference to how the suggestions from the group had been incorporated in the plans. This was followed by some questions for clarifications from the participants. 3.2 Suggestions for Effective Implementation As stated earlier, this section summarizes the main recommendations from the respective groups on how the agencies could implement effectively. A. Private Sector On the question - "Give us your suggestions on how we can implement our strategies effectively and involve you in the process", the response of participants is summarized below:
Private sector involvement should not be limited to consultations only but should extend
to project design, implementation and M&E. The private sector must be involved when laws are made by government, and donor
agencies can play a role to ensure this. A one-window approach is required for private sector promotion. In order to make the
Industrial Promotion Board effective, donor agencies should put pressure on Government to ensure that this must be made accountable and result oriented.
The three donor agencies should also pressurize the Government for: o Private sector involvement in policy making. o Create enabling environment and job opportunities.
The three agencies need to work on with the Government on the Labor Act, and a favorable investment climate.
Avoid duplication, e.g. GTZ worked in the tea sector and now Winrock, SNV and others have started working on this. If an agency focuses in one sector/ product instead of competing – projects will be more result oriented.
Initiative to support peace process is important but there is need to look into deeper issues. Ten years of insurgency is the result of hunger and unemployment – which are related to private sector. Conflict is very much related to business enterprise development.
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B. Youth The question to the participants was how could the three agencies implement the strategies effectively in the following areas and also have youth's involvement in the process:
o Job creation o Social sector (health and education) o Peace and security.
A summary of their response is given below.
1. Job Creation: • Promotion of self-employment • Strong information dissemination mechanism (as there is no or very limited information to
the youth outside Kathmandu) • Internship opportunities for youth/youth learning programs through exchange • Support to different ideas of youth groups • Highlighting skills and bringing out youths' achievements • Support leadership role through special programs to be implemented by youth 2. Social Sector (mainly health and education): • Representation of youth in health facility and school management committees (38%
representation) • Ensure youth participation in the formulation of youth targeted programs • Involve youth organizations in monitoring and evaluation of the programs • Participation of youth for dissemination of information to increase the access of youth to
health and education • Construction of youth friendly physical infrastructure (e.g. for differently abled people) 3. Peace and Security: • Establish common funding mechanism to strengthen peace process (e.g. ESP) with the
involvement of youth • Research and study on youth and peace-building
- Best practices on peace-building with youth involvement - Situation assessment - Reflection
C. Civil Society The questions for group discussions were -
Give us your suggestions on how we can implement our strategies effectively? Suggest how we can involve you in the process?
A summary of the response is given below:
• Members of civil society cannot be generalized and clubbed as one. They should be used
based on their comparative advantage, e.g. some are good in implementation of programs, and some have expertise as pressure groups, while others are good as watch dogs. They should be used accordingly.
• Apply ILO 169 - free prior inform and consent. • Resources often are not going to the right people. Need based programs should be
developed. This will also help bridge the demand vs. supply gap (service providers’ focus
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and recipients’ needs). • Provide support for the institutional development of civil society. • Strengthen local civil society at district level, who can raise their voice and conduct social
audit of public expenditure. • Indigenous people’s programs are missing. Key posts in all organizations are taken by
high caste people. Therefore, program for indigenous people should be explicitly mentioned with their active participation. In line with this, focus should be given more on indigenous women.
• The national systems need to be improved. Need for disaggregated data should be emphasized. Ministries of Health and Education should be held liable to ensure that the targeted groups are benefited. There should be bottom up monitoring.
• Good practices should be capitalized. Donors should build success story initiatives. Experience sharing and success stories should be shared as guidelines.
D. Women and Excluded Groups The participants' response to two questions is summarized below: Give us your suggestions on how we can implement our strategies effectively? Suggest how we can involve you in the process?
• Targeted programs are necessary for specific groups (e.g. Dalits) and in focused areas • Get in-depth knowledge and information on excluded groups before launching
programs/projects and help government in getting disaggregated data on marginalized groups
• Maintain transparency among donors • Involve excluded groups while monitoring • Promote and strengthen local organizations of the excluded groups • Implement affirmative action policies within donor agencies for excluded groups • At local level, work through local NGOs (and not INGOs or UN) • Pay attention on emerging issues of women's security • Focus especially on discriminated groups like Dalit women, widows and women from remote
areas and provide support to implement human rights instruments such as 1325, 1820, CEDAW, ICERD
• Provide support to develop skills for self employment for excluded group and link with their traditional skills
• Facilitate easy access to loans for women's self-employment. • Vigilance (monitoring) committees comprising children, teachers, NGOs, CBOs in all areas
(local level monitoring) • Involvement of concerned NGOs and CBOs (women, Dalits, Janajati, Madhesi, Muslim,
differently-abled, minority, OBC) on a regular basis in policy level planning meetings • Involve civil society for collection of disaggregated data for policy formulation process • Define the role of NGOs – should they work as implementers or watch dog, or linking
agencies between grassroots and government?
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E. Nepalgunj The participants' suggestions on the question: Give us your suggestions on how we can implement our strategies effectively, given that there are external factors such as political instability, Tarai issues and frequent bandhs etc.? is summarized below:
Education: • Identify poor women, single women, freed Kamaiyas, children and women from
remote areas and provide them with free education up to 10th grade • Use local teachers to make education sustainable and effective (this will also create
employment opportunities for local people) • Focus on literacy campaigns for women from hill districts • Provide support for identification and management of differently abled people. • Build separate toilets for girls and boys compulsorily to decrease the drop-out rate and
increase the enrolment rate in schools (specially in the case of girl students) • Make provision of special scholarships for Dalits and also for Muslims, Adivasis,
disabled students from endangered communities; and also for academically bright students who attend schools regularly
• Increase SIP's fund to upgrade schools and maintain minimum fund • Upgrade and give recognition to madarasas up to 10th grade and provide
management support. Health: • Focus support on running additional schools/colleges to produce more skilled health
technicians to depute them in all areas of the districts • Provide support for dissemination of information about HIV/AIDS; delivery of required
drugs and establishment of counselling centres at the village levels • Strengthen M&E mechanism by forming inclusive committees to supervise effective
use of medicines and services. Infrastructure: • Plan, implement, monitor and evaluate infrastructure development activities through
users' committees in close coordination with line agencies and local bodies; need to end the use of contractors for implementation and to tackle corruption issues
• There should be no budget ceiling while working through users' committees and coordinate with government line agencies for mobilizing technicians and technical support to local committees
• Establish independent and multi-stakeholder monitoring mechanism as a pre-requisite of assessing program effectiveness.
• Release funds on time for projects implemented by donors • Construct market related infrastructure Agriculture and Income Generation: • Implement women-oriented agricultural programs through cooperatives and make
them professional and self-sustaining • Identify irrigation needs and implement accordingly • Provide grants for seeds, fertilizers, and make these free of cost as per region/area • Focus on agricultural productivity and processing, storage and marketing management • Provide support for different means of making compost fertilizer (instead of supporting
chemical fertilizers) and alternatives to chemical pesticides. • Identify target groups (poor, women, disadvantaged communities, single women) and
implement skill development training programs based on their interests, needs and capacities
• Establish market information centres at regional level (covering 3-4 VDCs each). • Promote commercialization in agriculture through social mobilization process • Link the price of agriculture products with price index • Make provision for insurance in agriculture
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• Acquire land on lease basis on government guarantee and provide it to landless to promote commercial agriculture (vegetable farming, bee-keeping, sericulture, mushroom, and fishery).
• Implement income generation programs based on poverty mapping • Provide different range of skills development training to people going for foreign
employment considering the requirement/need of the particular foreign countries • Preserve and promote traditional skills. GESI: • Design and implement programs based on the GESI related disaggregated information • Encourage all district line agencies and NGOs to implement programs from a GESI
perspective • Ensure women's participation of at least 33% in all management committee (users
committees, school/health management committees etc) from the direct beneficiaries during the implementation phase
• Define who are the excluded? And provide clarity on how each program addresses exclusion: do not "excluded" but "those who have been excluded"
• Disseminate gender based violence related information through different media. Other Issues: • Improve stronger monitoring for all programs and use independent audits, public
audits (including the communities) to hold donor/GON accountable. • Ensure community involvement and beneficiaries' consultation in all stages of planning
and implementation processes. • Improved communications from both donor and government on key programs,
budgets, results, information on access to resources etc.
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F. Pokhara The participants' response to: "... Suggestions on how we can implement our strategies effectively, given that there are external factors such as political instability, Tarai issues and frequent bandhs etc.?..." is summarized below:
Education: • Provide scholarships and other facilities to students based on economic marginalization
as one of the criteria for selection • Organize interaction programs among government agencies and teachers'
organizations to increase the number of community managed schools • Implement skills development program for life skills education, and make the selection
process transparent to all for life skills education • Provide support to poor and marginalized guardians on educational income generation
programs • Provide grants based on School Improvement Plan (SIP) annually for schools managed
by community. Infrastructure: Roads • Involve districts in project design, cost estimate and implementation compulsorily • Focus on community centred construction plans and management • Give priority to construction and repair and maintenance of all weather rural roads • Make provision for effective monitoring (including local community people and
technicians) of roads, and conduct public audits regularly • Implement bio-engineering compulsorily while constructing roads • Provide employment opportunities proportionately to women, Dalit and other
caste/ethnicity people during construction and maintenance of roads. Water & Sanitation • Make a clear provision in the law related to ownership of water sources and assign
implementation agency • Make community people capable and give responsibilities to them to manage drinking
water system • Focus on quality participation of women and increase their participation and role in
managing drinking water system • Distribute drinking water system based on number of households • Make monitoring mechanism effective to sustain drinking water system Energy • Encourage private sector for production of electricity • Mobilize cooperatives for production of electricity, if private sector is not ready for this • Promote implementation of alternative energy programs/schemes • Coordinate the construction of micro-hydro projects and extension of national power
grid • Review the grant on micro-hydro. Agriculture, NRM and Livelihoods: • Use both government agencies and NGOs for implementation of projects and make the
latter equally capable to implement projects • Give priority to active organizations close to target groups for project implementation
and focus on building capacity of these organizations • Develop integrated programs based on local needs during implementation of
development programs in rural areas and implement complimentary activities supporting livelihoods
• Provide support for livelihoods improvement through micro-finance programs targeting remote and rural women, poor and Dalit
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• Focus on forest resource management based on people's participation • Develop irrigation system based on topography and availability of water. Health: • Ensure at least 50% women's participation in Health Facility Management Committees;
also ensure representation of other excluded groups in committees and build the capacity of the members as per their needs
• Produce and mobilize skilled health personnel at local levels to reduce the problem of high absenteeism of skilled health personnel and for continuation of health services in health institutions
• Provide women health personnel compulsorily at health post/sub-health post for the effective delivery of women health services
• Deliver free health services to the victims of HIV/AIDS and drug addicts, and conduct orientation programs effectively
• Roll out HIV/AIDS program as other programs in an integrated way at the community level
• Provide support for expanding SBA training sites to increase the number of SBA. GESI: • Make compulsory provision for poverty mapping/disaggregated information base in
VDC and design and implement programs based on this in VDCs • Ensure at least 50% women's participation and representation of other excluded
groups in all committee formed for program management at local levels (DDC, municipality and VDC)
• Conduct special programs (i.e. training, orientation, coaching, exposure visits) to women and other excluded groups in committees to make them equally competent
• Make provision of registration of complaints related to violence against women at Ilaka administration and Ilaka Police Office
• Form and strengthen paralegal committees in every VDC to reduce gender violence related incidents.
Implementation process • Planning and implementation of programs should be done in partnership with
government, civil society and private sector • Develop effective M&E mechanism • Develop a transparent system in procurement and decision making process • Focus on coordination and communication.
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G. Biratnagar In Biratnagar, the focus of the group discussions was on the following: How can the problems faced in procurement of infrastructure projects (especially
roads) be solved? How can the problems faced in implementation of infrastructure projects (especially
roads) be solved? How can programs be more GESI-friendly?
The response of the participants is summarized below:
Questions Participants' recommendations Suggestions on Procurement
• Adopt e-tendering process, and make provision for accepting bids in different places
• Make provisions for an independent monitoring agency (with authority), capacity building of Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA), National Vigilance Centre (NVC) and Public Procurement Monitoring Office (PPMO), provision for reward and punishment
• Make sure that budget release is on time, based on procurement plan of action
• Make the project transparent through different media • Make Public Procurement Monitoring Office effective • Use simpler/local language in tenders so that citizens can understand
easily • Ensure effective implementation of legal provisions for necessary
actions against bigger contractors in Joint Ventures.
Suggestions on implementation
• Form monitoring committees with representation of members from district level mechanism, local people and neighbouring villages/district for monitoring to maintain the quality of construction work
• Extend defect liability period from 3 to 5 years and include repair and maintenance expenses in tender during the period
• Ensure that budget release is on time based on procurement plan of action
• Make timely decisions on the problems/obstacles related to implementation and hold the organization responsible for any loss due to delay in decision making process
• Make provision for not transferring key officials and technicians of concerned projects during construction period
• Make arrangements for security force in sensitive places/situations to complete infrastructure projects on time
• Ensure coordination among concerned agencies to avoid duplication (i.e. road, drinking water, telephone and electricity)
• Political parties should give directives to their committees to stop extortion.
Suggestions on GESI
• Ensure representation of citizens in committees, construction management etc. based on population in working area
• Formulate programs for targeted groups/communities (especially for disadvantaged groups (Adibasi, Janajati, Dalit, women, differently abled people, minority groups etc.) based on human development index
• Make special provision in education (free education, scholarship, employment in family, support in educational materials, special
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arrangement for girl students) • Provide support for effective implementation of health service delivery
and social security (allowances, free health services to the excluded groups)
• Provide employment opportunities to excluded groups/communities in government/NGOs/private sector; provide support in positive actions such as capacity building to prepare them for jobs
• Make special arrangement in employment (skills development training, loan without interest, support in market linkages)
• Implement special micro-finance programs for targeted groups and communities.
• Strictly adhere to the inclusive and participatory provisions of VDC and DDC Grant Operational Manuals
• Prepare village profiles including disaggregated information compulsorily, update periodically and formulate inclusive plans based on the profile
• Provide support for Madarasa for physical infrastructure and required educational materials, and also provide incentives especially for girl students so as to increase their access to Madarasa.
H. CA Members The main suggestions to the three agencies from the CA members were:
• Build sense of ownership of projects/programs at community level, and keep the
community people informed about projects throughout their project cycle • Invest based on the real needs of people/ right projects/ right numbers and right
amount of fund and not to get involved in too many things • Focus on implementing sustainable projects • Do not to focus only on large power projects; concentrate on viable power projects
that have been identified (and found to be feasible) which are just 10 km away from the road head
• Make program as well as administrative budget transparent to all • Design and conduct social audit of each project to inform all stakeholders and make
the project transparent • Establish mechanisms to make the programs transparent to all political parties • Design and implement various programs in Tarai, such as water and sanitation,
agricultural productivity, strengthening civil society, making people aware of their rights, etc.
• Focus on strengthening the capacity of local government • Use local NGOs/CBOs for program implementation • Build capacity of political parties (from grassroots to central levels) • Increase women's participation in all development activities
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I. GON Secretaries This part summarizes the response of GON Secretaries to the two questions for discussions: • How can the barriers to implementation be addressed jointly? • What support might the Government like?
Jointly addressing the barriers to implementation: • Policy harmonization is required. There are too many actors with many policies and the
beneficiaries are confused. There should be clear harmonization and understanding on what benefits the beneficiaries and pressure groups are going to get from any intervention
• SWAp has worked well in the health sector, and all major donor agencies need to join in this for different sectors
• Duplication of work needs to be addressed. Cross-cutting issues should be addressed as priority
• Donors should align with government priorities • Accountability should be clarified for effective participation. Focus more on those areas
those have limited alternatives. Sectoral coordination is a must • Procedural bureaucracy is a problem. Both GON and donor agencies need to work
together to address these and achieve the results effectively and efficiently • Adhere to the inclusive and participatory provisions of VDC and DDC Grant Operational
Manuals and focus on building capacity of marginalized people/groups in villages to involve them in the development process
• Conduct full-time skills development training programs for excluded communities based on their needs and capacity, and also provide support in production, processing and marketing under a 'package' program
• It will be better if donors go through the government channel and strengthen it rather than creating another channels and/or parallel mechanisms.
Support that Government may like: • There must be clarity about SWAp in line with donor harmonization by 2011. In this
case, Government is not getting full support; all donors have not come to SWAp. Due to this there is duplication of programs
• SWAp is an effective way for setting priorities together, and implementing together. Focus on working with the Government as it represents the people. Priorities must be in line with Government. Work with central level organizations as it will be easy to monitor.
• Donors should help develop software, and schedule activities in such a way that no overlapping happens. There is a need to optimize the use of resources and help the Government in formulating implementation/operational plans.
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ANNEX: LIST OF PARTICIPANTS
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Nepalgunj: Community Groups (NGOs/CBOs/ Civil Society - February 8, 2009)
SN Name Position/Organization District
1 Mr. Nari Ram Luhar Act Chairperson, Rastriya Dalit Network, District Chapter