Nepal

Canada's Commitment
Results
Country Profile

Canada's Commitment

Canada's official bilateral program in Nepal dates back to the 1970s. Initially, the focus was on infrastructure-based programming. Over time, there has been a gradual evolution towards community-based development and the empowerment of women and marginalized groups, especially in the health and agricultural sectors. These activities-objectives of CIDA's Nepal Interim Programming Strategy, approved in 2004-have also worked towards mitigating the local impact of Nepal's civil conflict.

Canada's neutrality and its support to Nepalese civil society have earned trust as a partner in Nepal's development. This has reinforced Canada's influence, especially in the fields of sustainable rural livelihoods, community-based governance, and human rights.

Canada will continue to work with Nepal through the core sectors of health and governance, with a crosscutting theme of gender equality.

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Results

Within this context, CIDA-supported programming in Nepal is producing results, such as the following:

• In addition to increasing the productivity of traditional crops and introducing new, higher-value crops, the Sahakarya Project has improved farmers' purchasing power by making agricultural credit more widely available.
• Through Sahakarya and CIDA's Canada Nepal Gender in Organizations Project, training in gender and social inclusion has resulted in significantly higher rates of participation by women and marginalized groups in community-based organizations.
• The Community Groundwater Irrigation Project has put ownership and management of shallow tube wells into the hands of more than 3,500 user groups in rural areas. CIDA's Local Development Facility, managed from Kathmandu, has helped more than 4,000 women and marginalized individuals undertake small-scale income-generation activities.
• By promoting latrines and watershed protection, the Community Environmental Awareness and Management Project (CEAMP) has seen a decrease in water-borne and sanitation-related diseases. CEAMP has also contributed to better home air quality and a more sustainable environment by promoting improved fuel-efficient stoves.

Recognizing that development in Nepal cannot always wait for peace, CIDA has played an active role in the design and promotion of the ground rules for development activity in the context of the ongoing conflict. Now affirmed by 10 major donor nations, the Government of Nepal and the Maoist rebels, these Basic Operating Guidelines (BOGs) have increased development workers' freedom of movement and action in rural Nepal.

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Country Profile

Nepal has seen a decade considerable civil unrest: the ten year Maoist insurgency that concluded in 2006, along with dissolutions of the government in 2002 and 2005 have contributed to a deterioration of the country's infrastructure, including roads, communications, schools and hospitals. Nepal's status as one of the poorest countries in the world-with an average life expectancy of 62 years, low literacy rates, and limited access to safe drinking water, sanitation and immunization-is underpinned by centuries-old caste-based, gender and ethnic discrimination. These factors helped fuel the insurgency and severely restricted the impact of international development assistance.

Dalits (the caste system's "untouchables") and Janajati (ethnic minority groups) are largely illiterate, have poor access to public goods and services, and are often subjected to physical violence-as are women, who account for only one third of the paid labour force, and have little to no meaningful participation in government and local decision-making bodies.

Nepal's Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) outlines a program aimed at promoting faster and pro-poor economic growth, equitable access to social and economic infrastructure and resources, improved governance, and targeted programs for the ultra-poor and socially excluded.