UN HIEF NOT COMING TO NEPAL

UN CHIEF NOT COMING TO NEPAL

By Bhola B Rana


Kathmandu, 21 March: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon´s Nepal visit has been postponed, Robert Piper, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator said.
Ban was invited first by a body headed by Chairman Prachanda to develop Lumbini, the birthplace of The Buddha, and then by the government.
The visit was never formally announced by the government
or UN; it was only announced by Prachanda and Lumbini lbody he heads.
They said Ban would arrive 28 April and fly to the birthplace
of The Buddha the following day to participate in an international programme to develop the long neglected Lumbini
with the participation of a Chinese INGO.
Controversy has surrounded the visi with main opposition NC President Sushil Koirala asking Ban not to visit until delayed peace and constitution processes are completed.
UN withdrew from Nepal mid-January 2011 without completing the processes as requested by parties; UN political role has been .
Prachanda and the Lumbini attempted to derive maximum benefit from the proposed visit now aborted.
Piper said Nepal has been given more time to prepare for the
visit
The news broke one day after OHGHR-N which first came to Nepal 1 February 2005 during the royal regime announced it was withdrawing from the Himalayan state.
The office didn’t close down even after the Baburam Bhattarai didn’t extend its tenure after 8 December 2011.
Ban is expected to continue his visits of India and Myanmar
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RENEWED TUSSLE IN NC STUDENT WING
Kathmandu, 21 March: The factional feud within the Nepali Congress (NC) has surfaced once again after student leaders loyal to senior leader Sher Bahadur Deuba decided to resign from Nepal Students Union (NSU) general convention preparatory committee, BInod Ghimere wrtes in The Kathmandu Post..
Twenty-eight student leaders from the 101-member committee have decided to submit their resignation jointly to NC President Sushil Koirala on Wednesday, stating that the committee was formed unilaterally and was against the union statute. They have also maintained that there a serious factional bias while picking the committee members.
The NC on Sunday had formed the 101-member panel including 28 members from the Deuba camp and a three-member election committee for holding the NSU general convention. The preparatory committee was formed from the majority decision of a three-member team consisting of NC General Secretary Prakash Man Singh, and Central Committee members Bal Bahadur KC and Surendra Pandey.
Pandey, close to Deuba, opposed the decision arguing that the panel did not have proportional representation and was too large to hold elections. The student leaders say even Pandey is likely to resign from the dispute resolution committee on the same day. Pandey also hinted at such possibility.
“The way the committee has been formed shows it is just for serving the interests of the establishment faction, therefore our friends have decided to resign from it,” said former NSU general secretary Jit Jung Basnet, close to Deuba. He claimed that the party was not actually willing to hold elections of the student body. Earlier, a 110-member election preparation committee headed by former NSU President Pradeep Poudel was dissolved in order to form a smaller team that would have proportional representation of both factions.
NSU former Vice-president Nain Singh Mahar claimed some members in the preparatory committee do not even have NSU memberships. He threatened to form a parallel committee if the present panel is not dissolved.

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MULTI-MILLION FOREIGN FUNDED FORESTRY PROGRAMME IN CONTROVERSY
Kathmandu, 21 March: A multi-million dollar forestry programme funded by donors has been dragged into controversy for non- transparency and the donors’ doubtful alignment with a non-government organization, Pragati Shahi write sin The Kathmandu Post.
On Friday, Rupantaran Nepal, an NGO, was chosen as an agency to execute the four-year Multi-Stakeholder Forestry Programme (MSFP) funded by UKaid from the Department for International Development (DFID), the government of Finland and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and supported by the government of Nepal. The donor community has contributed 63 percent of the project’s total budget of US $62 million (Rs 1.26 billion), with the government funding the rest for the implementation of the programme.
The NGO, set up in 2009 by a group of development professionals from the then Livelihood Forest Programme (LFP) and the Swiss Community Forestry Project, is running various programmes on improving livelihood through the funds from the SDC and the DFID.
Various groups, including experts from the forestry sector, officials and community forest users, have been expressing serious concerns over the programme from the very beginning for its lack of transparency during the preparatory phase in terms of institutional role and funding modality about two years ago.
“The activities of the donors participating in the programme are of serious concern. The programme is a result of a pre-planned design that came without holding consultations with partners concerned, including the civil society,” said Debesh Mani Tripathi, the president of Nepal Foresters’ Association (NFA).
“The programme was the result of vested interests of a few government officials and donor agencies in the forest sector of Nepal,” added Tripathi, who has been keenly following the MSFP since its inception.
“Rupantaran Nepal is an NGO formed by the donors to execute their programmes,” he said.
A five-member multi-stakeholder steering committee, formed about a month ago to provide strategic guidance for the implementation of the programme, has no representative from the civil society, despite the fact that the plan was to be implemented by the government, civil society and private sector organisations.
“The MSFP just holds a symbolic meaning to us. It is not a multi-stakeholder and people’s programme,” said Ghanashyam Pandey, the coordinator of Global Alliance of Community Forestry (GACF).
The programme was endorsed by the government about two months ago to contribute to inclusive economic growth, poverty reduction and to tackle climate change through good governance of the forestry sector. The project was expected to benefit around 1.7 million poor and the disadvantaged.
Rupantaran has been awarded with the Interim Forestry Programme, a project jointly funded by the SDC and the DFID for the period Oct 2011-April 2012, to work in 18 districts to provide forestry and livelihood services to forestry groups.
The same organisation will be working now as part of the MSFP in the same 18-listed districts.
It is also revealed that former official at the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation, Surya Prasad Joshi, who had also served as chief of the Foreign Aid Department under the ministry, is now a board member of Rupantaran.
“The donors had already provided funds before the finalisation of the names of the implementing agencies to Rupantaran which implies that they had made up their mind to award the contract to the same organisation,” said a source from one of the donor agencies.
However, Ramu Subedi, team leader of the MSFP representing the donors, said that the process of selecting Rupantaran as an implementing agency for the transition phase was done as per the international standards.
“Though the organisation has been managing donor-funded forestry projects for both the Swiss and the UK agencies, it is an entirely separate and autonomous organisation,” he said.
Subedi added that any formal complaints received as part of SDC’s procurement procedure will be investigated properly.
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