By Sujan Dhungana/Ural Singh Misra

When it comes to sustainable development, Nepal has a rather rocky track record, from highs such as the establishment of our national parks, to lows such as the pitiful state of our environment, politics and even our ever fluctuating economy. The role of HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation has been a bit different. HELVETAS has been working in Nepal since 1956 to promote self reliant and sustainable development among the disadvantaged population. HELVETAS’ very first international affiliation was with Nepal, and for over sixty years the organization has been working to help the underprivileged population obtain sustainable sources of income as well as train youths to acquire technical skills, provide clean sources of water to the rural population and probably the most important in the present context of Nepal - promote governance and peace.

Education and Skills Development

HELVETAS has been working in the education and skills development sector in Nepal to reduce the number of unemployed or underemployed people in our nation. It has three major projects which focus on this particular area: ELAM - Informal Sector Enterprise Development and Employment Generation Program which was implemented to uplift the economic status of many families in central Terai so they could manage their own micro-businesses; Employment Fund which provides underprivileged youths with skills training to help them enter the job market and the Skill development and Employment for the Informal Sector program.  HELVETAS has been constantly striving to help the rural informal economy by contributing to help maintain peace and good economic health of rural families.

Environment and Climate

HELVETAS has been working towards land and water resource management, community forest preservation and practices for climate change adaptation. As it has many years of experience in these fields and implemented projects which further help conserve Nepal’s environment, HELVETAS has been going for long-term gains to Nepal. The ‘Community Practice in Schools for Learning Climate Change Adaptation’ has been initiated to teach students how to adapt to the ever changing environment and the “Effective Water Governance in the Asian Highlands’ project teaches locals to effectively manage their water supply. 

Water and Infrastructure

A lack of strong infrastructure has led to many problems in Nepal in the hilly region. It has hindered people’s access to clean water. In order to help relieve pressure on rural farmers in hilly regions the Local Infrastructure for Livelihood Improvement Program was introduced in 2004.   This has helped improve food security in the hills and income of has farmers risen. The ‘Trail Bridge Support Unit’ of the Trail Bridge Sub-Sector Program has also helped people in rural areas tremendously.  It has helped provide safe and reliable means of crossing rivers, giving people access to expanded markets and children access to better schools. The ‘Water Resource Management Program’ is being implemented with the purpose of increasing drinking water access for rural population and to simultaneously promote sanitation and hygiene.

Rural Economy

As we all know a majority of the population are based in rural areas, so it is vital that people in the rural economy have a stable economic condition. HELVETAS has been working with local government authorities to help increase agricultural productivity, improve technology and promote sustainable soil management. Coffee is traditionally seen as a “cash crop” by farmers mainly because it fetches good price in the market. “Coffee Promotion Program” takes advantage of this and focuses on farmers who are cash deprived and helps with maintaining a regular source of income for those farmers. In order to promote food security, increased income and production technology the ‘Sustainable Soil Management Program’ was introduced in 2001 and is set to end in 2014. Going hand–in-hand with this project is the ‘Riverbed Farming Project’ which helps locals with their livelihoods.   Seeing a huge positive impact, the organization plans to continue this project for a few more years, provided that funding is adequate.

Governance and Peace

Arguably the thing people of Nepal want most is peace. If there was ever a time for anyone of the international community to come and help our poor nation, it is now. The most important aspect of democracy is the rule of the people, and if that is lost, we would end up with a nation of power-hungry dictators.   A majority of the people must be satisfied with what is happening. Currently only minorities are happy and satisfied. HELVETAS feels that a crucial block of democracy is the interrelationship between the people, the state and local government bodies. The organization works in Nepal to stop exclusion and inequalities amongst the people whether they are based on gender, race, caste or even religion. The government of Japan through its Japanese Social Development Fund has awarded a USD 1.9 million grant to the Partnership for Transparency Fund to support independent monitoring of development projects by the World Bank in Nepal. As over 1,000 people leave Nepal every day to be migrant workers mainly in the Middle East and South-East-Asia, it is vital that they remain safe, which is why the ‘Safer Migration Project’ was initiated with funding from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).  In 1997 HELVETAS initiated the ‘Linking Local Initiatives to New Know-How’ in the mid and far-western regions of Nepal to help deprived communities with issues that adversely affected their economic status.  This was done by way of income generation through cash crop production, skill development and social empowerment. This project has now been renamed ‘Linking Smallholders with Local Institutions and Markets’.

‘HELVETAS has been driving for long-term gains to Nepal’

HELVETAS is a politically and religiously independent association, supported by 96,551 members, patrons and 12 volunteer-based regional groups in Switzerland.  It is active in more than 30 countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe and Southern Caucasus. HELVETAS came to Nepal in 1956 and now cooperates with many technical and social organizations in all 75 districts across the country.

How do you evaluate your organization’s role in maintaining the bilateral relationship between Nepal and Switzerland?

HELVETAS is not a donor agency; it is more of an implementing agency.  However, we have our ‘Own Fund’ which is created and donated by our members in Switzerland.  Most of the funds to conduct our programmes in the many nations come from our major donors. At present, 50 percent of project funding to the Nepal programme comes from Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), about 25 percent comes from DFID and other funding comes from European Union (EU) and The World Bank. 

How has the bleak global macro-economic situation affected the support being provided to Nepal by Swiss government?

So far Switzerland seems to be lucky because there has not been any considerable impact in Swiss economy. Also the support that Swiss government provides to other nations is not so much affected. In the case of Nepal, the assistance by Swiss government is increasing annually and it is still trying hard to increase the assistance. 

Employment Fund has been one of the major projects of HELVETAS in Nepal since 2007. What are the achievements so far? How satisfied are you from this?

In fact, we are quite satisfied with the success of Employment Fund. When I joined HELVETAS in 2009, I used to doubt people when they talked about the employment rate and also the income rate of the training programme graduates under this project. But, only when I visited the field was I convinced with the statistical report. At present, we have an average employment rate of 70 percent from among our training graduates with average monthly income of Rs 4,600. With this, all our donors and even the Nepali government have appreciated the success of the project. Moreover, World Bank has even acknowledged the Employment Fund approach in a number of its other projects as well.

How is the Employment Fund regulated? What are its working principles?

As I have mentioned, Employment Fund is funded by three donors and we are responsible for the overall management, control and supervision according to the need of the Fund.  Furthermore, the Team Leader of the project is a HELVETAS employee who looks after the day-to-day activities of the project and submits us periodical reports. Our project team also makes some periodical visits to the field and discusses with stakeholders on how things are moving. In order to sum up overall progress of the project, we hold steering committee meeting where we discuss the challenges and gains made throughout the period. We also conduct our internal audit and the final reports are submitted to our donors as well as to our headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland.

What are the plans for the future?

Currently, we have no plan to launch a new project.  We shall instead focus on implementation of our running projects.