assessment and monitoring in nepal INGOs: a sample made by SWC

In spite of the political crises, it seems that the SWC – Social Welfare Council (newly reformed) is operating in evaluation and monitoring INGO projects.

We went to the villages of Kavre where the projects of CCS Italia are collapsing and the people received a visit from SWC officers. People explained them that since 2003 they are cooperating with CCS Italy throughput a sponsorship program directed to help children, family and community.

They told them that since two years all has been severely reduced as local operators described in past posts.

They told them that the still give pictures and photos of their children but no more help is given to them.

They told them that an Italian sponsors give to CCS Italy around Rs. 18.000 (yearly) and CCS Italy officers proposed to 42 local SMCs (School Management Committees) agreements which stated only Rs. 4.500 (yearly) for each children.

They told them that the nepali officers of CCS Italy which proposed this shame gain around Rs. 100.000 each month.

So people hope that this words will be written in the reports of SWC, not as last year when the same critics were shelved.

We spoke with people and they decided to stop this kind of robbery. If the CCS officers still use the money of our children to get high salry and benefits they could give to Italian sponsors their picture. We stop to give those of our children, If nothing is going to change in Kathmandu and Italy we organize a julus (people demonstration) to CCS office to ask for changing the thieves. We ask the Italian sponsors to press the CCS Italy HQ in order to utilize the fund they collect for our children as before, it means for the benefits of children, schools and community.

From Thulo Parsel, Mani Lama

Boat (INGO) People

In 2005 some of us started up CCS Italy offices in Cambodia. We signed agreements with MOEF (Ministry of Foreign Affairss) and we began to work in partnership with local organizations based in Kampot and Shianoukville.
The plans were to support primary schools, to create pre-primary and to help an aids-affected village near Kampot. Other ideas were to find out new way to tackle prostitution and trafficking which is a serious problems in the area where they operated and where some local missionaries are already working. We signed agreements with these local partners and we started the projects.
Now some new people should going on on these basis and so we like to receive news from our Cambodian friends still operating with that organization.
But even there something strange happen. First of all they wrote about the high running expenditure which cover more than an half of the budget of CCS Italy in Cambodia (as normally happens  in Nepal), the increase of usefulness formalism and bureaucracy and the low effectiveness of the activities.
In their Budget 2008, it seems that on Euro 215.000 given by italian sponsors for cambodian children around Euro 115.000 has gone for salary staff, expatriates, houses, and so on.
They pointed out, for example, the building of two pre-primary schools in the islands of Koh Thmai e Koh Rong, 40 kilometers far from Shianoukville where to reach takes several hours of shipping (and a lot of diesel) for about 25 children each.
As, the same CCS website describes these islands are very difficult to reach and they had to ship all materials for the buildings. Of course all has been very expensive as expensive is to monitor and to assure sustainability to the schools.
Our Cambodian friends were quite astonished by this decision because a lot of work has to be done in the schools already supported and in the near community where logistic and building costs are less and needs for people and children are higher. Safe-water, health, nutrition and so on.
But a reason, they suggested for this strange and expensive ideas, is that one of the expatriates working with CCS in Cambodia bought a boat and he has to cover the investments. So the social worker (?) boat people.

Working in the jails

It was a very good experiences and a nice project we did in 2006-2007 in the Central Jail (Female section) in Kathmandu. We provided sewing machines to more than 40 prisoner women, technical training, management training and legal assistance. We supplied them with all materials useful to produce garments for their family and children. The second step was to tailor boto (the tradition child dress) which we distributed in the Bal Bikas (Early Childhood Dev. Centers) we created in Timal (Kavre) enrolling more than 800 children. All children got a sort of uniform which was a good help for the family.
The last step should be to start production for the local market directed to foreign tourist wih the idea to channel garments to international fair trade market. The Women Tailor Group after one year of working and training were able to produce some nice garments from which we had selling agreements with local shops.
All was stopped by the donor (CCS Italia INGO) with no reasons in 2007. Even the brand we studied was put in a corner as well the works and hopes of the women involved.
This project was a namuna (sample) which could be extended, as our intention, to other jails in Nepal, and we did it in coordination with Jail authorities. The objective were to assure a little income to the prisoners, give them job opportunities out of the jail and a something to do during detention in order to avoid violence and bad attitudes.
To create opportunities and hope (it was the brand for the Inmates Cooperative) is the only way to help prisoners during detention and to help them to be reintroduced in normal life.
A recent survey showed that the situation in Nepali jails is deteriorating form many point of view and few activities are running to help the prisoners which are detained in over crowded structures.
This research shows that 38% of the prisoners it had surveyed had access to drugs even behind the bars in different parts of the country including the Central Jail, Bhadra Bandi Griha, Bhadra Mahila Bandi Griha, Dillibazaar Jail, Nakkhu Prison, Biratnagar Prison, Pokhara Prison and Birgunj Prison
Total of 351 prisoners living in the eight jails were surveyed and 15 per cent of the respondents were women.
Of the people who use drugs in the jails, 20 per cent said they use marijuana, 20 per cent brown sugar, 10 per cent injections and the rest 50 per cent said they use many kinds of drugs.
The survey stated that 50 per cent of the Injecting Drug Users (IDUs) in the jails share same needle. Half of the IDUs in jails had visited treatment and rehabilitation centres and hospitals at least once while the another half had never gone to either a hospital or any drop-in centre.
Legal assistance, income generating activities might be the way to give a reasons of life to these people.

Increased the number of Community Schools

During the past years we worked to enforce the role of the community in managing schools and ECDs (Early Childhood Dev. Center). They are managed by a SMC (School Management Commitee) formed by representatives of teachers and families. It is a good way to link quality on education, enrollenmnet and controll on teachers work. The SMCs have to be helped in improving their capacity and so we did by an agreement with lawiers and accountants from Tribhuvan University. We believe to do a good work transferring resources to SMCs (teachers salary, schools building and repairing, library, dicactical materials, etc.) and helping them to have a good accountability. In the VDCs where we worked each year during Baisach (nepali end of year), the SMCs did a community auditing to explane to the communituy how they spent our funds. People partecipated in a great number, it was also a feast where we distributed copybooks, pen, and other materials to children.
Now the process started in 2004 to hand over the management of public schools to community is going on. Over 8,000 public schools across the country has been handed over to local communities. According to the Department of Education (DoE), as many as 8,002 public schools had been handed over to the communities by March 13.
DOE declared that 2,604 schools have been handed over to the communities in the eastern region, 2,284 in the central region, 1747 in western, 627 in mid-western and 740 in far-western development region. Among them, 5,471 are primary schools, 1,695 are lower-secondary schools and 836 are secondary schools.
More schools have been handed over to the communities in Kavre, Morang, Illam, Udayapur, Nawalparasi, Baglung, Nuwakot, Jhapa, Rammechhap and Dolakha districts.
The school handover programme was first launched in 2003/04 in 15 districts and has been expanded to all 75 districts now, according to Nepali. The government has allocated Rs 2,035 million for the community-managed schools in the current fiscal.

namaste from ccs nepal web site

The blog of CCS Nepal has been closed as their message below. We are a group of people working since many years in Nepal (and Cambodia) both Nepali and foregneirs. Most of us worked with CCS Nepal or are still  consultants. We created a group called Community & Development Nepal to share in this blog our experiences and practices on Cooperation & Development.

Dear Friends

Many people from Nepal, Italy and abroad visited our blog  in these months but now we are going to close it.

A formal and written request has been made by Mrs. Chanda Rai, Country Director of CCS Italy INGO. The new people of Italy HQ and the Kathmandu Office dont like our critics directed to a better implementation of the projects we started in 2003, we apologize for this. In the last days it seems our critics have been able to change some plans of CCS Italia and, fortunately, to work again with community instead put money in official baskets. We cannot say more but only best wishes to all

When people moves

We always worked in cooperation with people and community to increase capacity. Here two success stories.

Sixty families of freed Kamaiya Tharus and internally displaced have turned the Janahit Mahakali Community Forest into a model for grassroots forest management. In a forest north of the East West Highway, where trees were depleting due to massive deforestation by wood mafia and erosion, the community has planted over 8,000 bamboo, timber and hardwood trees since 2004. Locals have also benefitted by producing more than a hundred tonnes of ginger. This unique system of agroforestry has raised living standards, while conserving forests. The community has donated Rs 100,000 to the nearby Udaya Higher Secondary School to provide free education for students from the ninth to twelfth grade, and Rs 40,000 to Kanchanpur Campus all from the sale of forest products. Members of the community can buy oxen on interest-free loans, flood control embankments have been built, VDC roads have been gravelled and a new child welfare centre built.

The chairman of the group adds that one of the biggest achievements has been the protection of the forest and wildlife. “We haven’t just protected trees,” he says, “we have seen more deer than ever before and even tigers and leopards have returned.”

In 2006 we started the electrification project in Timal and set TCRECA (a local cooperative) in order to mobilise community and manage the local grid which now is covering 3 VDCs and in construction for other 4. We help the local cooperative to born and now they are proceeding by themselves. 
No wonder, as many as 65 communities across 38 districts are engaged in the scheme. They are not only self-reliant but also act as watchdog against pilferage of energy. As per the Community Electrification Distribution by-laws 2060, the programme follows a 20-80 policy (community contributes 20 per cent of the total project cost and the government picks up the tab for the rest) . Over the years, the programme has worked wonders. It has promoted public participation, encouraged community management and also harnessed technical and managerial skills of the rural folks. 
Here is a case in point to bolster this argument:
Of a total budget of Rs 20 million, South Lalitpur Rural Electrification Cooperatives contributed Rs 4.7 million in the first phase.
Over the past six years, the programme has lit up 2,500 households in 14 remote Village Development Committees.
“Record reveals that very few households had access to electricity before the scheme was launched. However, we had to incur technical losses, thanks to the rugged terrain, elaborate network for transmission lines and high voltage transformers,” said Govinda Bajagain, managing coordinator of the cooperatives. The initiative has transformed the local economy. It now helps to run mills, furniture factories and computer-aided schools. “We have deliberately kept the profit margins low. We buy power at Rs 3.60 Kwh and sell it at Rs 4 Kwh,” he added.

Drops of Nepal: images of people, places & projects

We post a documentary on our activities, with  images of people and places of Kathmandu, Kavre, Timal, Chitwan. Projects  on health and education for Tamang and Chepang children. The film has been shooted by Italian volunteers.

about quality in education

The Ministry of Education has been telling the public that there are 60,000 vacancies for teachers in schools. But there are more than 300,000 people with valid training certificates and teaching licenses waiting for an opportunity to serve as teachers. School education, in Nepal, remains dismal also because of unnecessary government intervention in educational establishments from time to time. Last year, the government decided to recognise ten months’ training after SLC as equivalent to grade 11. Moreover, they have also announced that ten months’ training after grade twelve will be considered equivalent to B.Ed first year. At a time when the undergraduate degrees in most countries across the globe require four years of study, the government seems ready to award B.Ed degree in two years’ time
Worse still, the training contents and methodology at the Education Training Centres (ETCs) are below par as com pared with the academic ones. This will only produce incompetent and unskilled teachers but also have an impact on the quality of students produced. In our own neighbouring countries, a primary school teacher requires a Bachelor’s degree plus a year or two years’ training. In our context, SLC pass-outs fulfil the minimum qualification for teachers of primary schools. The School Sector Reform programme envisages 12 years of schooling as minimum qualifications for the primary school teachers. On the pretext of upgrading the qualifications of teachers, the Ministry of Education (MoE) has made a wrong decision to equate the ten months’ training with academic degree.
As per the government provisions, aspiring teachers are required to sit for exams that certify them to be allowed to work as teachers. However, it is also true that the government has distributed teachers’ licences to all and sundry, without actually assessing the qualifications and performance of the candidates. It should be noted that only such candidates, who have undertaken trainings, are qualified to sit for teacher’s examinations. That means licensing examination is the second layer of quality control. Recently, Education Minister Renu Yadav announced that the Ministry of Education has decided to scrap the teachers’ licensing examinations. If implemented, this will be another erroneous and irresponsible move that will still degrade the educational system.
From an article of Dr. Mana Prasad Wagley

Dal Nepal: buon anno ai Sostenitori italiani di CCS Italia

Before Chisthmas 2009, CCS Nepal expressed criticism on some methods and practices of the italian INGO which they were collaborating since 2003. New management and people have been appointed both in Nepal and Italy from the middle of 2007 so many activities have been reduced or cutted. We give an abstract of the letter and a table which compare the activities done in 2006 and those in 2008.

Cari Amici
Prima di tutto, ringraziamo I sostenitori italiani che dal 2003 stanno aiutando I nostri bambini e comunità nel Distretto di Kavre, I migliori auguri per le festività di Natale e del nuovo anno.
CCS Nepal, formata da gente di Kavre, iniziò nel 2003 tutte le attività per contribuire a educazione e salute in Nepal, grazie a migliaia di Sostenitori italiani.
Come abbiamo scritto nei posts precedenti stiamo ancora discutendo con I responsabili di CCS Italia INGO il budget per il 2009 e come far proseguire I nostri progetti.
Dal 2007 I fondi sono costantemente diminuiti e così l’aiuto e le opportunità che eravamo in grado di dare ai bambini e alle comunità di Kavre, come si vede dalla tavola che compara le attività nel 2006 e nel 2008.
Come siamo preoccupati per l’elevato aumento delle spese di gestione dell’ufficio di Kathmandu di CCS Italia che è passato da 4 a 22 funzionari per gestire meno attività rispetto al 2006. Ciò significa che le spese di gestione (stipendi, rents, attrezzature, macchine, etc.) sono cresciute da euro 43.000 in 2006 a 153.000 in 2008. Ciò ha gravemente ridotto I fondi per I progetti e I beneficiari.
Vogliamo estendere queste preoccupazioni ai Sostenitori italiani.
Thanks for all
The Staff of CCS Nepal NGO

activitiescompare TABLE ACTIVITIES 2006 COMPARED TO 2008 (tAVOLA DI COMPARAZIONE ATTIVITA’ 2006 e 2008)

Dear Friends
First of all we thank a lot the Italian sponsors which since 2003 are helping our children and community in Kavre District and best wishes for your for Christmas and the End of the year holidays.
CCS Nepal, formed by local people of Kavre, established 5 years ago all activities related to education and health in Nepal thanks to the help of thousand Italian sponsors.
From 2007 our budget and activities were severely reduced as well as the help and opportunities we were able to give to children and community in Kavre as appears in the comparing the activities in the table below which resume the documents already published.
As well as we are worried about the huge increase of running expenditures in CCS Italy office in Kathmandu which passed from 4 people to 22 managing less activities. It means that the running expenditures (salaries, equipments, cars, rents, etc.) raised from Euro 43.000 in 2006 to 153.000 in 2008, this has severely reduced the fund for the projects and beneficiaries.
We extend our concern to Italian sponsors.
CCS Nepal NGO staff

Trainings, reports and workshops development

In a recent article it has been pointed out the paradox of local level governance in Nepal is that much money and effort have been poured into it over the decades but with no visible improvement.
In 1996 UNDP and DANIDA pushed on the government to introduce the Local Self-Governance Act 1999 which failed to include the vital provisions regarding the user groups which showed good performances in managing the forestry community development which has been fully domestically managed by local community.
With no provisions regarding the formation of local groups, the enormous fund to decentralization has been managed by, as the article points, local bodies were invariably composed of the hand-picked favourites of the village elites.
As a result, the billions of rupees that went through the DDCs (District Dev. Office) and VDCs (Village Dev. Office) in various tied and untied grants over the years made little dent on the problems of poverty and deprivation that continue to remain rampant in Nepal’s villages. The same seems happened for other local authorities as DHO (health) and DEO (education).
The misuse of huge funds and the needs of a serious reforms of local body, most of them not working or bad working due to that lack of elected officials and good mnagement should suggest to international donors to go directly to the primary stakeholders: it means community through local user groups (for specific projects), community schools, etc.
This work should be a priority for INGOs and NGOs which must operate gross route level as their guiding principles should require. Unfortunately this is not happening for some of them. It is the case of Centro Cooperazione Sviluppo INGO (CCS Italia) which during the last two years left good community tied projects in Kavre moving towards funding the local DEO (district education office) and DHO (district health office). This negative attitude seems directed to void the role and capacity of the local NGO working in Kavre since many years. The reasons could be the strong critics  the local NGO moved regarding the ineffective use of Italian fund and donation made by the officers of the INGO and their incapacity to operate directly with the community. Maybe also their laziness and high salaries.
The same misadventure which is running, in a great scale, DANIDA. They decided to support a 10 million rupies project (19 months) project entitled “Promoting Local Governance for Effective Service Delivery” in six selected districts.
It was said to be “supply-side” governance strengthening initiative and comprised workshops for government officials, local politicians, NGO/CBO officials, and “service receivers”. The project developed training manuals, formed coordination committees and “good governance pressure groups”, and held public hearings with government officials including the CDOs in attendance.
It seems the same trend followed by Centro Cooperazione Sviluppo (CCS Italy) in which instead to work in the community, it is easier to work through local bureaucrats. It is the training and workshop development which is the main activity wide spreading among INGOs and institutional donors.
This kind of “projects” doesn’t need many activities, fieldwork, and accountability of service given.
The single most important contribution that the government and donors could make to promote good governance and development in the villages is to empower the stakeholders and assuring effective service delivery and the only way is to go in the villages working with people. 

Guna Dhakal- Social Worker-Kathmandu