Joint Programme Evaluation final evaluation report august 2016 DanChurchAid (dca) Jhamsikhel, Lalitpur Nepal Dr. Prakash Bhattarai and Dr. Dhruba Gautam

4.2 Inclusive Citizenship for Accountable Governance Programme

The evaluation team found ICAG as a time relevant and an important programme in countries like Nepal, India, and Bangladesh where the women, Dalits, and marginalised groups’ participation in civic and political life is not as strong as other parts of the world. ICAG directly support to DCA’s current policy goal of uplifting poor, vulnerable and marginalised communities socially as well as politically. ICAG programme seems particularly important for Nepal where the country has adopted the new Constitution in September 2015. According to the constitutional provision, Nepal will be divided into seven different federal states and numbers of Gaonpalika and Nagarpalika (local government structures). This is a high time for civil society advocacy and awareness raising programme for ensuring a policy in place which could legally institutionalise an adequate representation of women, Dalits and people from marginalized groups in political decision-making processes. Thus DCA's continuous support for implementing the ICAG programme from local to national level would be quite contributory to Nepal. Likewise, Dalit rights movement is gradually emerging in Bangladesh with the formation of Dalit women federation from the support given by DCA. The evaluation team recommends that DCA should continue its support for strengthening Dalit rights movement in Bangladesh. In addition to this, below are some of the policy and programmatic recommendations under ICAG programme theme;
Policy/Strategic Recommendation

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  DCA should conduct a mapping of INGO programming in the areas of ICAG programme theme, so that would give a better idea where to concentrate its interventions. The reason for proposing this is because a number of agencies such as National Democratic Institute (NDI), The Asia Foundation, Governance Facility and many others are also focusing their interventions towards encouraging women’s and Dalits’ participation in local level decision-making structures. DCA could learn from their approaches and strategies, and adopt the most workable approach for the best utilization of its resources.
  

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  Inclusion, participation, and representation of women, Dalits and marginalised groups is difficult to achieve fully only through project driven approach and implementing programme in limited locations and with limited participation of people from these groups. Thus, ICAG programme should also focus on supporting the movement building initiatives along with the projects implemented at the local level. And, there needs to be a balance between campaign driven and project driven initiatives for obtaining better result with the combination of both strategies.
  

Programmatic Recommendations

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  Considering the effectiveness of capacity development programme for facilitating Dalits’ and marginalised groups’ representations in local government and political parties’ structure, this programme can be a continuous intervention of DCA even in the next programmatic cycle. However, there is no need to repeat the similar programme VDCs to implement the same project. Thus, newer VDCs or newer districts should be in priority where such capacity development programmes are needed. Likewise, there might be a number of other organisations and agencies both in Nepal and Bangladesh are doing similar kind of initiatives. Thus, selection of project location from DCA partners should not be overlapped with other agencies.
  

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  Lack of livelihood opportunities have been identified as impeding factor behind active women’s political participation. Particularly, marginalised women cannot sustain into politics for a long period of time without sustainable livelihood opportunities. Thus, it is recommended that DCA’s future interventions that encourage women’s involvement in civic and political processes should come along with economic empowerment programme. In other words, women’s political participation, leadership development, and economic empowerment programme should come in a package.
  

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  Considering the need of regional linking and learning opportunities, DCA should facilitate dialogue and stronger partnership opportunities among DCA partners at the regional level working on Dalits and marginalized groups’ issues.
  

4.3 Resilient Livelihood and Sustainable Food Security Programme

Considering the overall analysis, the evaluation team comes to a conclusion that DCA’s RLSFS programme should focus on RtF/resilient livelihood by encompassing DRR, CCA, humanitarian response, business development, economic growth, and value chain development. Based on ‘regional food security governance project’ and ‘cross-border DRR project’ (Nepal-India), DCA should work at regional level. Following are key policy/strategic and programmatic recommendations in relation to RLSFS programme of DCA;
Strategic/Policy Recommendations

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  Key focus on livelihood and DRR and CCA as cross cutting: For the clarity on the programmatic approach, livelihood should be core programme and DRR and CCA should be planned as cross-cutting activities. DRR initiatives should be planned to cover in all disaster cycles.
  

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  Emphasis on climate resilient crop varieties: To reduce the risk of crop failure, farmers should be supported to adopt climate resilient crop varieties as recommended by Agriculture Research Council. Farmers should be trained on issues such as time of cultivation, cropping schedule, soil and water management, harvest, storage and other management practices to reap extra benefits. Instead of seed and fertilizer support, DCA should use its resources for technology transfer, soil test support, irrigation schemes, input for poly-house, collection centre, zero energy cold storage, and processing unit (for ginger and turmeric) through solar dryers for long-term benefit. Ridge and furrow method should be promoted to combat with irrigation scarcity. DCA and partner NGOs should facilitate and promote the concept of ‘one VDC one product’ and ‘one VDC-one agriculture cooperative’ for sustainable farming practices.
  

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  Promote high yielding varieties: Along with the cereal crops, farmers should promote climate resilient high yielding crop varieties such as turmeric, taro, ginger, garlic, peanuts, sweet potatoes and pineapple in the degraded land to ensure impressive income. Emphasis should be given to expansion of pulses and local beans in the degraded sloppy land with minimal tillage (climate adaptive approach) in pocket area development concept to ensure technical support, and market supply.
  

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  Livelihoods linked to private sector and market: DCA should manage the resources for resilient livelihoods and channelize it through local cooperatives instead of granting token support to individual farmers. Small actions only engage staffs unnecessarily. More emphasis should be given for the promotion of skills/knowledge, selection of agro-product/business/enterprises that are efficient, profitable and sufficient quantity and quality to meet market competition. More advocacies should be in place to link government and private sector’s resources for leveraging resources. DCA should promote business development model and value chain strategy for the financial sustainability of the farmers.
  

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  Selection of programme areas: DCA has been working in same community since long, however there is neither graduation of farmer’s needs nor graduation of programme activities. Working in the same communities for several years can be counterproductive if there is a mismatch between the natures of interventions. To harness impacts and to use of the annual fiscal budget of VDC, DCA should cover the full VDC instead of few wards/hamlets. Considering the Human Development Index and Gender Development Index, programmatic emphasis should be given to Mid-and-Far west development region of Nepal. DCA also should consider recovery and long term development programme in earthquake response districts like Gorkha, Dhading, and Bhaktapur/Lalitpurin the central development region. Emphasis should be given to work with poor, excluded and marginalised groups such as women, Dalits, Adivasis/Janjati, disaster affected people, migrants and their families, and ethnic minorities like Ranji and Badi communities of Nepal. Farmer’s interest could be retained if governance programme is ‘means’ and food facility service would be ‘end’. Governance, gender, and inclusion issues should be taken as cross-cutting of the programme.
  

Programmatic Recommendations

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  Awareness raising and knowledge sharing programme: Knowledge should be channelized through climate-smart field schools, participatory videos and use of social media. Along with the smallholder farmers, capacity building should encompass agro-vet dealers and technicians at District Agriculture Development Office to ensure market monitoring for price, adulterants, and expiry dates of seeds.
  

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  Advocacy on crop and livestock insurance schemes: Crop insurance is paramount to enhance the confidence of farmers for large investment. Advocacy should be in place to translate the provision spelled out in ‘Crop and Animal Insurance Guideline 2069 BS’ of the Government of Nepal.
  

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  Foster integrated aquaculture system: To strengthen the livelihoods of farmers, an integrated aquaculture system combining poly-culture of carp in ponds with livestock (pigs, ducks, etc) and horticulture (bananas) should be introduced to utilise optimum levels of pond productivity and waste utilisation. Integrated pond culture is low-cost and high-productivity technology.
  

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  Focus on mass awareness and campaigns: To deliver the uniform message to all, focus should be on mass awareness activities, debate and discourse and periodic interactions among the stakeholders. Classroom based training involving similar category of people would not generate energy for advocacy and lobbying. The involvement of ‘oppressed’ and ‘oppressors’ groups should be in the same platform for real advocacy. It would be effective if evidence based advocacy would be linked with street drama, drills/simulations and video documentary show. DCA should continue its advocacy on enactment of RtF Bill through institutionalisation of RtF network, strengthening of DCA partner’s network and capacity building of RtF network and aligned organisations. RtF should not be taken as ‘event’ but the ‘movement’. DCA could advocate for the establishment of food/seed bank at SAARC level in the collaboration with other relevant INGOs as per RtF networks’ charter and Dhaka Declaration.