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VOL. 03, NO. 01, June 01, 2009 (Jestha 18 2066)
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“WELL WRITTEN REPORTS ARE APPRECIATED BY DONORS, NOT THE PERFORMANCE”
- Mrs. Kamala Acharya (Dhungel)
Mrs. KAMALA DHUNGEL (ACHARYA ), who was elected Vice Chair of the South and East Asia Regional Committee of IUCN in Bangkok last March 2009, has been working in the field of environment and women empowerment since 1989. During early nineties when Nepal was experimenting its first phase of democratic pluralism under 1990 Constitution, Mrs. Dhungel appeared in the national scene when she was chairing a leading NGO of women, called Women in Environment (WE), and took up the issue of degrading environmental impact on women and children’s health. Moved by the growing demand of the people mobilized by her, the then Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai and Minister Sahana Pradhan of the Interim Government publicly announced in a program organized by WE with the support of UNICEF that their government will close Chobhar Cement Factory which was emitting hazardous dust and sewage causing health damage to the people in the Kathmandu valley. Since then, Mrs. Dhungel and her environmental groups are consistently working both in urban and rural areas of Nepal to help empower women and address environmental issues. Construction of twelve school buildings, three irrigation dams, eight culverts and thirty drinking water artesian wells and hand pipes in eighteen villages of Mahottari District alone, where the editor of SPOTLIGHT had opportunity to personally visit the sites to confirm it, indicate as to how much an individual social worker and her team can silently render voluntary services without any hue and cry. Dhungel spoke to SPOTLIGHT on the issues. Excerpts:
You were recently elected as Vice Chair of the South and East Asia Regional Committee of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) in Bangkok. How much time you have to give now for your international engagements?
The Women in Environment (WE) which I represent is a modest organization with only over 5000 woman members and has its focus primarily on national issues. As a member of the IUCN, it is but natural for WE to familiarize itself with global and regional issues as well. Moreover, environment has transboundary character, such as climate change, global warming, and desertification. With a new responsibility as Vice Chair now, I may have to devote little more time to link up our national activities with IUCN’s regional programs and overall missions.
Who are your international partners except IUCN ?
The SAME International, Japan, is one of them. Individual members of the SAME have been personally contributing to support our rural school building and community health programs in Mahottari. They have supported to construct one beautiful school extension building for the Tamang Community in Bhim Dhunga at the outer rim of the Kathmandu valley. WE is about to complete a fast-track rehabilitation and peace building program supported by OTI/USAID. In November 2005, WE had collaborated with Seoul based Asia-Pacific Environmental Council (AEC) to organize an international environmental conference (APNEC-7) in Kathmandu which was supported by Japan Environment Council (JEC), UNEP, IUCN and WWF. In the past WE has carried out programs in over 15 districts of Nepal with the support of many international agencies, such as DANIDA, USAID, UNDP, UNICEF, GTZ, WB, ADB, JICA, SNV, WWF etc.
In your two decade long work in social services sector since 1989, what major achievements have you made ?
It would not be possible to list all our completed activities in the space that your paper may allocate for me. Actually, I don’t like to call them our achievements; it is for the beneficiaries and targeted communities to tell what it is. Many of them you have yourself personally seen in the field. However, I must mention some of the exceptional works. I term them exceptional simply because very rare women’s groups might have ever done such hilarious works in rural areas of a country in conflict when woman volunteers had confronted rebels carrying guns when the infrastructural building works of concrete nature were being built on demands of the rural communities in Mahottary. These works have directly benefitted over three hundred thousand rural people. Poverty alleviation and drinking water projects supported by the World Bank through PAF and Rural Drinking Water Program at the community level still continues, although WE as an institution does not receive even overheads. In the past, WE worked for rehabilitating the squatters in Balaju with DANIDA support, and supported a rural child care center with the heap of WWF to enable local women build their income generating capacity near the Bardia National Park. WE also worked with fifteen schools of the Kathmandu valley and developed environmental curriculum for school children. WE worked with other women's groups in recent few months to sensitize local women leaders and CA members about constitutional issues of women's concern.
Donors supporting these programs must have become proud of you and your organization. Is not it so?
Yes ! some genuine donors are very happy. But many donors I have worked with pay only lip services, they don’t care the outcomes. If you are clever enough to write a sophisticated project report sitting on the table without going out to the field, you get appreciation. I know, foreign officials working for the donors have to satisfy their own bosses at their headquarters. The host country people, the real local recipients, need actions and results, whereas the donors need good reports. Some of our projects were sabotaged by Nepalese officials working with donor agencies, through wrong briefings at the center, despite their open appreciation before the local communities and promises to continue support. Even their Heads who visited the field have wholehearted appreciated the work but later they have backed out. Grounds were either deficiencies in writing reports or politics. Some donors, I can name, have been playing politics, and they are biased towards one against the other. I have seen a couple of donors making allegation against one leading NGO that it was close to a political party but the same donors were seen supporting the others who still are closer to another party. Double standard is found amongst them also. I feel sad to say so, as it may hurt the feelings of many genuiene donors. Serous problems are with our NGOs and governance machinery as well.
Q.Why don’t the recipient organizations deny accepting funds and come out openly against such donors?
WE had taken stands on a couple of occasion when differences existed between us and our donors. WE even denied to accept funds when we were simply asked to receive funds for another international agency without any substantive role defined for us. Many recipient organizations have very little options except to accept what donors say. Local NGOs have to compete with INGOs, who locally grab funds that are allocated by the foreign governments from their tax payers money for Nepal and the Nepalese. Even the Government and UN agencies compete for local funds like NGOs. Works that can very well be done with less funds by national NGOs are given to expensive INGOs and UN projects, where incompetent foreign experts get lucrative job. Many qualified Nepalese have unsuccessfully argued with donors on these issues. In some cases, you are not even allowed to defend your case when donors impose wrong policies; neither are they transparent. Inclusiveness has become another new tool these days for them to monopolize recruitment process against fainess and competitiveness. We know, they cannot do so in Vietnam, Cambodia and even in India. But they have free hands in Nepal due to deficiencies in governance. I believe, individual contributors like Japanese, who visit the site and personally see performance results with their own eyes before making any further commitments, are much better than institutional donors who don’t play a fair game. Perhaps, foreign governments should be advised to commission an investigative team to find out the reality about the use of donors' funds. All I say is: "the rule of law should apply to all".
Q. If a benevolent donor offers to support you a project, what would be your priority?
I doubt you would ever get such a donor who would unconditionally offer support. However, ‘compulsory education and low cost sustainable housing with jobs for Dalit community’ would be my first priority followed by a rehabilitation program for the victims of political conflict through an environmentally sustainable housing and self-help scheme, as a second choice.
