The idea being discussed over
the past year has been to set up a national level fund of some sort,
similar to Thailand's CODI, to support the community development
initiatives in Kathmandu, Lalitpur and other small cities in Nepal (such
as Bhutwol, Pokhara, Birgunj, Biratnagar, etc).
The groups in Nepal are extremely serious about and committed to
the community fund idea. A few months ago, they set up a committee to explore this
idea, and while Jockin was there in mid December, he was able to talk to
the Mayors of Kathmandu and other cities, and suggested that they just
go ahead and do it, and that SDI would be ready to support the fund.
On December 27, Lumanti and
the Kathmandu municipality organized a special workshop on the community
fund idea, in which the five members of their fund committee (which
included academicians, professionals from Lumanti and municipality
officers) made a presentation of their findings and their ideas about of
how the fund might work to the people of the federations and the
Municipality - how the fund would operate, what its objectives would be,
etc.
The committee's initial
recommendation was to create a national-level community development
fund. But the problem with
setting up a national-level community fund of any sort is always finding
the best "umbrella" for the fund:
where to locate the fund within the government structure, how to
find some sort of legal status, under what ministry and using what
ordinance, etc. And even
with the best of intentions, all this may take a bit of time to set up.
But the people are very enthusiastic, and the mayors and local
governments are keen to start something now.
Some of the cities even feel ready to contribute a few million
Nepali Rupees to the fund.
Management of the
National Community Fund
The ideas being discussed
about how to establish the national-level fund reminded Somsook (who
attended the workshop) very much of the discussions that took place in
Thailand, in 1994, when the UCDO was first set up.
Five options of how the fund could be started and located were
discussed:
1.
Create a new bill to establish the fund : To
create a new law, or a bill, to establish a legal umbrella for the new
fund, get one of the ministries to propose a law to set up the
independent fund to support the people - a separate bill which would be
approved by the Parliament. But
this would take a lot of time.
2.
Use an already-existing bill or law and set up the
fund under that bill.
3.
Reform an already existing government program : Look
at the existing government programs (in community development or poverty
alleviation) and find one which is not doing very well, and taking over
that program and expanding it or turning it into a community-fund style
program.
4.
Attach the fund as a program to an existing government
organization : To
make use of whatever possible existing organization, make your
independent process, but hang it under the most possible government
organization. This is how
UCDO did in 1992, when they chose to be under the NHA, but with their
own independence.
5.
Building from small to big : Don't
bother about the larger national umbrella initially, but just start with
the fund in whatever is possible, in any constituency, you start with
that, and then link it to something larger and more formal later, let
the national fund come later.
For the time being, the
political situation in Nepal is extremely unstable, the civil war with
the Maoists continues to rage outside the Kathmandu Valley, and nobody
is certain what's going to happen next.
Conditions are not too favorable for establishing the big fund.
So at the end of the meeting, we all agreed to use the fifth
strategy - starting small and getting big later - for now, and to
start working to set up the city-based funds right away.
There are a lot of good reasons for starting by setting up funds
at the city-level first: it
will be a lot easier, any mayor can set up a special community fund
program under the Municipality and allow it a certain freedom to
operate. Different cities
can also develop different styles of doing this, with similar concepts
and principles. Then you
create a link between these funds, at the same time you are trying to
get the legal support for these city funds at the higher level - it
should go together, but the city funds can start right away.
So the idea we agreed upon is
that the city funds can start right away, and in the mean time, we can
establish a central coordinating unit of some sort, which would do two
things :
·
proceed with the process of
setting up the national fund
·
coordinate, support and link
together the community funds in each city, which in turn link with their
local community networks and the local municipal government and NGOs. In
this way, the central unit is more of a coordinating body than an
implementing body.
What kind of fund
should it be?
There was also a discussion
about what the fund would offer. In
the draft prepared by Lumanti, it was proposed that this new fund
combine grants and loans together.
In Somsook's opinion, this would be confusing.
So it was suggested to make a revolving fund for loans, and then
make a clearly separate fund for giving give grants for infrastructure
or development projects. Another
fund, then could be for capacity building (exposure trips, exchange,
training, administrative costs for coordinators).
So it would be clearer and simpler to make clear to the people
these separate parts, and then people link with the revolving fund for
housing and to the other fund for infrastructure loans.
First city fund to
start in Kathmandu :
It was clear in the meeting
that Kathmandu City is ready to start its fund, and so will be the first
city-based fund to be established.
The Mayor of Kathmandu has already pledged to put in US$ 100,000
of municipal funds to start the fund, and Jockin has committed to
matching this amount with funds from SDI and ACHR ($50,000 from SDI and
$50,000 from ACHR, with $25,000 being transferred from ACHR to Kathmandu
right away). This has given
the Mayor a lot of positive ideas.
This mayor is extremely
enthusiastic, has a lot of energy and wants to work for the poor.
He clearly sees the fund as a way to deal with the urban poverty
and housing problems, which he announced his intentions of solving within
two years! But he is
also a local politician, and his tenure in office is also very
uncertain. Last year, the
King of Nepal dissolved the national government and appointed his own
prime minister, which appointed an "interim" cabinet, whose
new ministers in turn appointed a new set of mayors, including our new
mayor for Kathmandu. This
interim government may not last very long and may be dissolved.
The larger system of the country seems to be unsettled for the
time being - how elections will take place, how to ensure they are free
and fair, how to avoid violence, how to deal with the civil war raging
all around.
But Kathmandu's new mayor has
had some experience with "land pooling" in the past, in
some of the peri-urban areas of Kathmandu, in which the informally
occupied plots and scattered unplanned infrastructure are reorganized
and readjusted into a more rational form, without moving anyone away,
within a certain area. This would be quite exciting as a strategy for dealing with
the squatter areas in the peripheral areas of the city, where land and
infrastructure have been so badly mismanaged, no system, to readjust in
ways that work for the city and the poor.
This would be a very promising strategy to explore in Nepal, as a
means of dealing not just with poor settlements, but with the whole
system of how the city is developing and managing land in these peri-urban
areas, which have sprung up without planning or infrastructure or
anything!
Management of the new
Kathmandu Community Development Fund :
Two principles about how
the new fund in Kathmandu will be managed were discussed and agreed upon
:
1.
That the fund will be under the umbrella of the Municipality, but
being a separate entity with some independence from the Municipality.
2.
That the governing board should come from various sectors,
including representatives from communities, local government, NGOs and
academics, and probably keeping the Mayor as fund chairman.
3.
In all this, the Lumanti NGO, as the established supporter of the
people's process in Kathmandu, may have to play a strong role in the
fund, sitting on the governing board and helping facilitate the fund
process in other cities, where Lumanti is already operating.
4.
The fund will have the objective of giving loans for income
generation and housing. It
is still not clear whether people will save with the fund.
In general, people will probably prefer the model like CODI,
where the community savings groups are necessary, but kept separate from
the fund (but contribute a certain amount to communally build the fund
as well).
