House of Commons - DFID's Programme in Nepal - International Development Committee

DFID's Programme in Nepal - International Development Committee Contents

5 Progress towards the Millennium Development Goals

Economic growth

67. Poverty reduction is one of the targets of MDG 1 and is DFID's overall objective for all its programmes. The most effective way to reduce poverty in a country is through economic growth. Growth in Nepal averaged 4% between 1995 and 2004. The estimated rate for 2008-09 was 4.7%, revised down from 7% to reflect the impact of the recession. DFID says that remittances and migration account for 25% of GDP, and are four times as important as aid.[104] There are obvious growth opportunities. Nepal's proximity to India and China offers access to huge markets; one of the Government's priorities is to "harness international cooperation and regional economic prosperity for national development".[105] There is also significant potential in hydropower (see below), where Nepal currently exploits around 1% of its capability, and in agriculture, which makes up a third of GDP. DFID says that there are also opportunities to develop tourism, which has historically been a key economic sector.[106]

68. The key constraints to growth which DFID has identified in Nepal are political instability and insecurity, poor infrastructure and an over-regulated labour market. Nepal is not closely integrated into the global economy and its banking sector has not been much affected by the global economic downturn but tourism, one of its key sectors, has suffered.[107]

69. Foreign direct investment into Nepal is very low at only $6 million.[108] As we have highlighted, criminality and insecurity are deterrents to investment. Saferworld emphasised in oral evidence that the targeting of the business community for kidnappings and extortion has deterred inward investment and the return of Nepalis living abroad who might otherwise be interested in developing business opportunities in the country.[109]

70. DFID's Country Business Plan emphasises that economic development and jobs significantly increase the prospects for long-term stability. It points to the Government of Nepal's commitment to private sector-led growth and its ambitious job creation plans.However, DFID also stresses the importance of growth in Nepal being inclusive, given that it is the most unequal, as well as the poorest, country in Asia.[110] The Plan sets out the support which DFID will provide for creating an enabling environment for private sector development, including capacity building in public financial management and the financial sector and funding a Nepal Investment Climate Facility (with the World Bank) to promote better dialogue between the Government and the private sector, with the aim of overcoming obstacles to investment. [111]

71. DFID plans to help establish a Centre for Inclusive Growth in Nepal which will "provide robust analytical support to the government to increase the quality of decision making and accelerate inclusive growth." It says that the overall aim of the centre is to "increase the quality of decision making and strengthen the government's accountability to the Nepali public on key areas of reform." The Nepal Centre will be linked to the DFID-funded International Growth Centre to ensure that it can draw on the best international experience.[112]

Employment generation

72. DFID made a commitment in the 2009 White Paper to "help fragile and post-conflict countries generate economic opportunities which will benefit 7.5 million men, women and their dependants in five priority countries over five years." Nepal is one of the five countries selected to receive this assistance.[113] We said in our 2009 report on Nigeria that "in an ethnically diverse country with a long history of political instability, the existence of large numbers of young unemployed men presents risks to stability and security" and this is equally true in Nepal.[114] Saferworld highlights that guns can be bought for £8 and that young unemployed men are "keen to arm themselves so that they can acquire the '3 Ms'—mobile phones, money and motorcycles".[115]

73. DFID acknowledges that "jobs are needed for post-conflict stabilisation" and to demonstrate a peace dividend.[116]It plans to provide skills training and job placement schemes with a national target of creating 170,000 short-term and 130,000 long-term jobs.[117] An estimated 50,000 jobs are planned in agriculture and tourism.[118]

AGRICULTURE AND LAND REFORM

74. DFID's Country Business Plan highlights agriculture as one of the sectors to which it will be reducing its support "given strong World Bank and ADB engagement". However, support will continue in four areas:

proven decentralised community-based agricultural commercialisation programmes;
private sector-led development of agricultural markets to enable Nepal's 20 million farmers, particularly women, to increase their returns from agriculture;
rural roads which "dramatically increase farmers' profits by lowering costs for inputs and increasing prices for produce";
reducing vulnerability to climate change, improving irrigation, reducing flooding and raising awareness of different crops and planting practices.[119]

75. Mary Hobley was sceptical about DFID's plans to promote employment in agriculture. She said that, in her experience, there was no interest amongst young men in the villages in being involved in agriculture. Expectations had changed and their aim was to find jobs in service industries or to migrate to the Gulf and Malaysia for jobs. The absence of men aged between 18 and 40 in the villages was noticeable for these reasons.[120]

76. Land reform will also be necessary in Nepal if more people are to get their livelihoods from agriculture. The land ownership system in Nepal was described to us during our visit as "feudal" and skewed by the caste system. 75% of the population is rural. DFID says that it is working to increase access to land for women and disadvantaged groups. Currently only 14% of women have land registered in their names. Half the population owns less than 0.5 hectare which is too little to generate enough food to live on and 2.3 million people have no land at all, with most of the landless coming from marginalised ethnic groups and the lower castes. Only 6% of Brahmin/Chetris are landless compared to over a third (37%) of Muslims.[121]

77. DFID is supporting the High Level Land Reform Commission to analyse and propose new reforms to address land issues, and is working with poor and disadvantaged groups to gain access to government forest land.[122]Professor Subedi said that previous attempts at land reform had not been successful but that "People know what ought to be done. Having the courage to do it and then seeing through the reform [..] is the challenge." He believed that donors could support land reform by sharing international experience from other countries which have been through the process.[123]

RURAL ACCESS PROGRAMME

78. DFID has already supported 100,000 short-term jobs, over half for women, in projects to build 1,200 kilometres of roads and 2,200 trail bridges. We saw examples of these projects in Nepalgunj and Baglung. DFID's contribution takes two forms: joint donor support to the Government's Rural Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Sector Development Programme (£10 million); and a directly-implemented Rural Access Programme (RAP) (£22 million, 2007-2010).[124] As we saw, as well as providing employment, RAP aims to improve livelihoods by increasing accessibility for some of the most remote communities to enable them to get their agricultural produce to markets and to reach health and other essential services. The second phase of RAP is employing 15,000 workers, all of whom are from the poorest and most disadvantaged groups and a third of whom are women. RAP has been implemented in seven districts.[125]

SKILLS TRAINING

79. As well as funding short-term jobs, DFID is supporting longer-term skills-training for young people, particularly those from excluded groups.[126] In Nepalgunj we met beneficiaries of a DFID-funded programme delivered by the Swiss NGO Helvetas. DFID allocated £3 million in 2008 for skills training for 13,200 young people. 60% were women and 80% were from disadvantaged groups. DFID says that 80% of trainees found employment. Most participants doubled or trebled their income. The cost of the programme was £320 per person, which DFID believed was "very good value for money"[127] The participants we met had received training in plumbing, telecoms, brick-moulding and sweet-making. DFID plans to continue its funding for skills training through Helvetas. £9 million has been allocated for the 2009-2013 period to provide training for 35,000 young people.[128]

Forestry

80. Forest covers about 40% of Nepal and the forestry sector contributes about 10% to Nepal's GDP.[129] Deforestation and forest degradation take place for many reasons, including the clearing of land for agricultural use and for firewood, exacerbated by population growth and unemployment. The productivity of Nepal's agricultural land is expected to decline as a result of climate change, which will act as a further trigger for deforestation. Over 70% of its people depend on agriculture and forestry for their livelihood.

81. A significant portion of Nepal's forest is still under government control, where experts say deforestation is continuing.[130]There have been some notable steps forward in Nepal's approach to forest management over the past few decades and it has become increasingly participatory. The Master Plan for the Forestry Sector (MPFS) was drawn up in 1989 and provided a 25-year plan for Nepal's forests. As part of this, significant efforts have been made to increase community ownership of forests. DFID says that a fifth of Nepal's forest area is now managed by local communities.[131]Mary Hobley, a forestry expert, commended DFID for its long-term commitment to forestry in Nepal, which extended over 20-25 years. The environmental impact was "huge" with "trees now where there never were trees".^.[132]

82. Despite progress on community ownership, the Head of DFID Nepal made clear that entitlement to forest land remained a difficult issue. Communities manage forests on the basis of a plan agreed with the district forest officer, but there is no guarantee of how long this "lease" arrangement will last. DFID has been pushing for community land rights to be written into the Constitution to give greater security. Agreement was likely to be much more difficult to reach in the Terai area of Nepal, where land is extremely valuable and "highly contested", than in the mountain and hill areas where most community projects are currently implemented.[133] DFID recently announced it would be providing £40 million towards tackling deforestation through support to the 10-year National Forestry Programme (NFP). Increasing community ownership of the thousands of hectares of forest still under government control is one of the objectives of the DFID funding.[134]

LIVELIHOODS AND FORESTRY PROGRAMME

83. DFID has allocated £19.9 million over the 2001-2011 period to community forestry through its Livelihoods and Forestry Programme (LFP), which it says will "help almost one fifth of the population of Nepal to make a better and more sustainable living from forest resources."[135]

84. We visited one of the LFP sites in Parbat. The programme aims to build the capacity of local people to manage resources themselves in partnership with Government, NGOs and other stakeholders at local level. It works with 5,000 Community Forest User Groups in 15 districts across the country. These groups have legal status and have replanted and restored forests in a way that improves rural livelihoods by sustainable harvesting of timber, fuel-wood, and fodder.

85. DFID reports the following impact from the LFP programme:

Forest user group incomes increased by 61% from 2003-08 "with over a quarter of this being directly attributable to DFID's programme". Income for excluded groups (including Dalits) nearly doubled.
About 1.5 million person days of employment were created annually in the 15 LFP districts (equivalent to about 7,500 full time jobs), either directly or indirectly by forestry groups.
433,000 people were lifted out of poverty in 7 LFP supported districts.

DFID estimates that for every £35 spent through the LFP in those districts, one person permanently left poverty.[136] Mary Hobley thought that the £35 figure was "a touch optimistic".[137] However, she believed that community forestry had been an "extraordinary success" in empowering so many user groups to own and manage resources, although she reinforced that the programme had yet to address the much more intractable problem in the Terai.[138] The Head of DFID Nepal emphasised that the LFP user groups were very inclusive and that a "by-product" of them had been women's groups which discussed health issues and set up microfinance schemes.[139] The LFP community group we met was led by a Dalit woman.

86. We commend DFID's Livelihoods and Forestry Programme as an effective intervention which has increased community ownership of forest land. Its participatory approach has helped to tackle inequality and exclusion, particularly for women and people from lower castes. However, forestry ownership issues are far from resolved in Nepal, particularly in the Terai where land values are high and ownership is therefore more contested than in the hills and mountainous regions where most projects have so far been implemented. We recommend that, in response to this Report, DFID provide us with information on how its 10-year funding for the National Forestry Programme will seek to address these issues and further increase community ownership.

Hydropower

87. Nepal is harnessing less than 1.5% of its 43,000 economically viable megawatts of hydropower potential. The country depends mainly on biomass (wood) to meet its energy needs. Nepal's demand for power is growing by around 10% per year.[140]The potential benefits of increasing Nepal's exploitation of hydropower include curbing deforestation and increasing access to electricity. Currently 40% of Nepali households have access to electricity and only 11.5% in rural areas. DFID highlighted the significant potential for Nepal to earn money from exporting electricity to other countries.[141] The Minister told us that "there is real private sector interest" in hydropower generation in Nepal.[142]

88. However, growth in the sector has been slow. The Nepal Hydropower Association attributes this to a number of factors including: lack of a consistent government policy; lack of co-ordination between key stakeholders; inequitable participation and benefit sharing in hydropower; failure to exploit indigenous expertise and resources; slow pace in electricity market development; insufficient awareness of hydropower amongst the general public; and lack of research and development.[143]

89. The DFID Minister believed that the donor community should focus its efforts on improving the overall investment climate in Nepal. This was crucial because hydropower projects were likely to take 10 or 20 years to come to fruition. Investors needed to see evidence that the business environment was secure and functional and that the necessary infrastructure, including roads and energy, was in place to facilitate big construction projects.[144] Professor Moore told us that India and "Indian capital" was key to hydropower exploitation in Nepal.[145]

Health

90. DFID has provided a total of £71 million over the past six years to health care. This includes £23 million for the Support for Safe Motherhood Programme; £15 million for HIV/AIDS; and £33.5 million for the Government's health sector programme to which DFID is the largest bilateral donor.[146]DFID says that its support to the health sector has contributed to the halving of child mortality over 15 years, as well as progress on maternal mortality (see below). The Department told us in evidence that it was now "considering future support to the health sector", with a second phase of its health programme due to start in mid-2010.[147] On 11 March, DFID announced that £55 million would be allocated to the Nepal Health Sector Programme over the next five years. This will represent a contribution of 6% to the Government's overall health budget of £900 million for the period to 2015.[148]

91. The NGO Merlin said that there had been a marked improvement in the support which the Government of Nepal provided for the health system since the end of the conflict. The Government currently allocates 7-8% of the national budget to health care and this is projected to rise to 11% by 2015 in support of a 20-year health sector strategy. Supplies of drugs and equipment have improved. Linda Doull of Merlin told us that a large number of health staff fled from rural areas during the conflict. Many had now returned to their locations and 85% of trained staff were now in post, but this still left 15% of health professional posts vacant.[149]

92. The DFID Minister told us that the Department was working with the Government "to incentivise healthcare in more geographically remote areas through payment of training costs" which the trained worker then "repays" by working in remote areas for two of three years".[150] Merlin reported that the financial incentives put in place to retain staff, including skilled birth attendants, in more remote areas did not always reach the intended beneficiaries and that there was a lack of transparency in their administration.[151]

93. As discussed above, the absence of elected local government and effective structures to deliver services is a significant factor.Merlin highlighted that most of DFID's support to health services is focused on the Ministry of Health and that this did not address the severe problems in disbursing funds to the local level. This, combined with the lack of capacity to deliver services, meant that an effective response to emergencies (such as a recent diarrhoeal outbreak in the Mid-West Region) relied on the capacity of international and local NGOs to provide services, rather than government bodies.[152] Professor Costello believed that DFID had "done a great job in strengthening central ministry capacity" but agreed that the challenge remained of ensuring that this progress filtered down to local level.[153]

94. The DFID 2009 White Paper said that use of health facilities in Nepal more than doubled in one year following the recent abolition of user fees.[154] It was not clear to us whether this included all user fees or just those for maternal care. The Minister was not able to clarify the position in oral evidence but subsequent written information indicated that maternal delivery services are free in all government hospitals and this is gradually being expanded into both profit-making and not-for-profit private hospitals. User fees have also been abolished for health services at all facilities "up to but not including a district hospital". At district level, out-patient care is free for all but free in-patient and emergency care is only available for selected categories of patients, including the elderly and extremely poor.[155] DFID made clear that cost was not the only barrier to health services: access is also limited by the difficult terrain: 36% of the population have to walk between two and four hours to reach a road.[156]

95. DFID's support to the health sector has contributed to good progress on some indicators such as child mortality. The Department has now announced further funding of £55 million over five years to support the Government of Nepal's health reform programme. It is important that this second phase of health sector funding continues to focus on strengthening government systems but it must also increase the quality and availability of health services at district and community level. We recommend that, in response to this Report, DFID provide us with details of how its health funding will help to achieve improvements in local health care provision in the period to 2015.

96. The abolition of user fees by the Government is a welcome development which has made health services much more accessible. This is worthy of DFID support, to ensure that free services are made available to as many poor people as possible. Geographical barriers to access also need to be tackled by bringing services closer to communities. DFID support for providing incentives to health staff to work in clinics in more remote areas appears to be a helpful initiative, although it clearly needs to be rigorously monitored to ensure funding reaches the intended recipients. We request further details about the programme and how it is monitored in response to this Report.

MATERNAL HEALTH

97. Millennium Development Goal 5 is to reduce maternal mortality by 75% by 2015. Despite the maternal mortality rate falling from 526 per 100,000 live births in 1996 to 281 in 2006, Nepal is assessed as being severely off-track on this MDG.[157] Approximately 80% of women in Nepal give birth at home and the figures are even higher in the more remote areas.[158] Only a third of deliveries are assisted by a skilled health worker, although this has increased from 4.8% in 2000.[159] We visited maternal health facilities at the public hospitals in Nepalgunj and Baglung. The latter had only three doctors in post against an establishment of 11.

98. We identified the main obstacles to women achieving a healthy pregnancy and birth in our 2008 report on Maternal Health and these apply equally in Nepal. They include reluctance to access services because of remoteness, lack of transport, cost of care and cultural values which mean that women may choose to give birth at home or need permission to seek medical care.[160] The Head of DFID Nepal told us that the cultural issues in Nepal included women who have given birth being regarded as:

[...] unclean and sent to the cowshed for [...] a week or two weeks after they have given birth. A number of women have died because of the cold, but it is culturally accepted that that is what people do. If you are talking about changing the culture and mindset, that is very difficult.[161]

We discuss the wider issues of women's equality in society in Nepal in the gender equality section below. Supply side weaknesses are the ones common to developing countries. They include the quality of maternity services, including a lack of trained, competent staff, blood, and basic key drugs and sterile supplies. Inadequate referral and transfer of care services have also been identified as problems.[162]

99. DFID's Support to Safe Motherhood Programme (SSMP) was a five-year bilateral programme launched in 2004 which received a total of £23 million.[163] In our 2008 Report on Maternal Health, we highlighted the achievements of the SSMP in Nepal:

The SSMP takes a multi-pronged approach that seeks to assist policy formulation, provide safe abortion services, improve emergency care and strengthen infrastructure. DFID funds are given in the form of financial aid, technical assistance and direct support to UNICEF, the agency which helps to implement the programme. […] We applaud DFID for its contribution to the Nepal Safe Motherhood Project and Support to Safe Motherhood Programme, which have included a range of interventions relevant to maternal health in Nepal over a decade that has witnessed progress in reducing maternal mortality.[164]

Merlin agreed that:

The DFID funded Support to Safe Motherhood Programme (SSMP) has largely contributed to improved performance and DFID support in terms of strengthening policy (eg Health Sector Programme Implementation Plan, Skilled Birth Attendants, safe abortion) has been crucial in ensuring that adequate national policies are in place.[165]

SAFE DELIVERY INCENTIVE PROGRAMME

100. The Safe Delivery Incentive Programme, which DFID has supported, was launched by the Government of Nepal in 2005. It aims to encourage women to deliver at a health centre by providing a cash transfer to cover transport costs. A cash incentive is also offered to health care staff to provide delivery care. A number of evaluations of the initial scheme have been conducted.[166] Professor Costello pointed out that it had had most impact amongst wealthier women who lived nearer to towns, rather than poor women in remote areas.[167] Some of the other weaknesses highlighted by the study included:

Weak administrative procedures which led to a wide variety in the way the rules were applied. There were delays in moving the cash from the centre out to the districts and only 29% of women received the cash transfer payment at the time of delivery.
A wide range of health workers could claim the provider incentive including those with no training in delivery care. No monitoring system was established for the scheme leading to false claims by health workers, district level staff and women.[168]

Whilst acknowledging these flaws, Professor Costello believed that DFID's support for the cash transfer scheme had been "very courageous" and "a very important policy initiative".[169] DFID told us that 400,000 women had received the delivery cash incentive and 90,000 had received free delivery care under DFID programmes.[170]

101. Delivery care services were not free at point of use when the scheme started but, as we have indicated, user fees, including for maternal care in public health facilities, have recently been abolished by the Government. However, faced with the fact that 80% of women still deliver at home in Nepal, we asked DFID whether incentive payments could ever be an effective incentive to overcome the physical barriers women in more remote areas face in reaching a health centre. The Head of DFID Nepal accepted that "there is a limit to how far that incentive scheme will go and women in the very, very remote areas, even if you pay them 1,500 rupees to travel four days to the nearest health centre to give birth, are probably not going to do it."[171]

FUTURE DFID SUPPORT FOR MATERNAL HEALTH

102. DFID acknowledges that "disparities persist in maternal health". Use of antenatal care is 18% amongst the poorest fifth of the population compared to 84% amongst the richest. Only 6% of deliveries are assisted by skilled attendants amongst the poorest groups compared to 47% in the wealthiest.[172]

103. The Support for Safe Motherhood Programme ends in August 2010. DFID's Nepal Country Business Plan 2009-2012 did not give details of how its maternal health activities would continue.[173] However, DFID has now said that its new health sector programme will build on its previous support for maternal health. It states that DFID funding will contribute to increasing the number of births assisted by a midwife from 246,000 in 2009 to 406,000 in 2015; and that the number of women receiving treatment to deal with birth complications will increase from 33,000 a year in 2009 to 50,000 a year in 2015.[174]

104. We agree with witnesses that DFID's support for maternal health services in Nepal has been courageous and innovative. The halving of the maternal mortality rate over the 10 years to 2006 was a great achievement for the country. Nevertheless, Nepal is judged to be severely off-track in relation to meeting Millennium Development Goal 5 by 2015. It makes sense for DFID to support maternal health through its overall health sector programme in co-operation with the Government of Nepal. This must not, however, mean that the targeted approach to addressing the specific factors underlying high levels of maternal deaths is lost. We recommend that, in response to this Report, DFID provide us with information on the mechanisms it will use to monitor the impact of its new funding for the health sector on maternal health outcomes for women who are poor, from excluded groups and from remote areas.

105. The challenge of addressing cultural obstacles to improving maternal health is one which we have addressed in a number of previous reports. The low value placed on women's lives is by no means unique to Nepal but until it is tackled, women and babies will continue to die unnecessarily as result of inadequate care during childbirth. Working with community and religious leaders has been found to be effective in changing attitudes. We recommend that DFID continue to work with all sectors of society in Nepal to press for a greater recognition of the health needs and rights of women, including at the highest political levels.

Education

106. DFID allocated £20 million over the period 2004-2009 to a multi-donor sector-wide programme supporting the government's Education for All (EFA) programme. Donor assistance accounted for 25% of the Government's basic education budget in 2007-08 of around $160 million. DFID says that it has encouraged a special emphasis within this programme on poverty and exclusion, particularly the problem of out-of-school children, many of whom are socially excluded. In future, DFID assistance will be provided through the European Commission, including seconding a DFID education adviser to the EC to oversee the programme.[175] Through its Community Support Programme, DFID has also contributed to the construction of 2,500 schools. We saw examples of the support which had been provided in the Nepalgunj area.

107. DFID highlights that its funding has contributed to the following impacts:

The number of children enrolled in basic education has increased from around 4 million in 2003 to 4.8 million in 2008, with enrolment of Dalit children up from 600,000 to 970,000.
Gender parity in enrolments is close to achievement.
Approximately 8% of children remain out of school in the primary age group, down from 16% in 2004.[176]

While these achievements are very welcome, VSO pointed to weaknesses in the quality of information collected on enrolment: they told us that the number of Dalit children recorded as enrolled in school in some cases exceeded the number of Dalit children in the community. VSO also highlighted that, despite DFID's emphasis on reaching socially excluded children, wide disparities still existed between the best and worst performing districts in terms of access to education for girls and lower caste children.[177]

108. DFID's new Education Strategy, published in March says that "Ensuring that all children receive quality basic education is not only a moral duty. It is an essential investment in our common future." It cautions against complacency about the progress which has been made and highlights that "The challenge of enrolling all children in school and ensuring that they complete a full cycle of good quality education is far from being met." Meeting the challenge will require "a renewed effort from national governments and donors".[178]

109. DFID says that Nepal is on track to meet both the MDG education targets (of universal access to primary education and gender equality in education). However, the latest assessment in the 2009 Autumn Performance Report indicates that Nepal (along with a number of DFID's other PSA countries) will not meet the target for universal primary education completion until 2021.[179] As we have pointed out in previous reports, the target for MDG 2 is to ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary education by 2015.[180] It appears that this has been watered down to ensuring that all children are enrolled in primary education by 2015.

110. The Minister was not able to explain to us how this disparity had arisen but in a subsequent note DFID acknowledged that "the Committee is correct: MDG 2 for all children to complete primary education is off-track in Nepal." The current completion rate is 54% with a target of 84% by 2015. The target for enrolment remains 100% by 2015-16. We were told that, in future, DFID Nepal will report on the completion as well as the enrolment indicator.[181] The new Education Strategy makes clears that the MDGs are "universal education completion and gender parity at all levels of education".[182]

111. It is worrying that DFID informed us in the course of this inquiry that Nepal was likely to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) education target when its own statistics produced elsewhere clearly demonstrated that this was not the case. We are pleased that DFID has accepted that its evidence was misleading and that it will report on both enrolment and completion rates in Nepal in future. It is vital that DFID's future support, to be provided through the European Commission, continues to focus on excluded children, particularly girls and children from lower caste and minority groups. We request further information on how the next tranche of DFID support for the education sector programme will specifically address exclusion.

112. Our main concern, however, is that the intention of the MDG on universal access to education, that by 2015 all children should complete primary education, has been watered down to a requirement for them simply to be enrolled. As we have pointed out previously, if all children in the cohort are to complete five years of primary education by 2015, 100% enrolment should have been achieved by 2010. This is clearly not going to happen. We believe that the international community is failing children in developing countries by accepting enrolment in primary education, rather than completion, as a sufficient measure of progress. DFID's new Education Strategy makes clear that completion of primary education is the MDG target, not simply enrolment. We recommend that, in response to this Report, DFID provide us with details of how its new Strategy will help address this failure to make more progress on the education MDG, both in Nepal and more widely. The UK should also advocate for much faster progress on education at the UN Summit on the MDGs in September.

Gender equality

113. As we have said, exclusion and unequal access to services based on religion, caste and ethnicity is pervasive and persistent in Nepal and was one of the factors contributing to the conflict. Gender inequality exacerbates other forms of exclusion. We were told during our visit that almost 80% of Muslim women in Nepal still received no education, compared to a national average of 53% and just 7% for Brahmin/Chetris men. Only 14% of women have land registered in their names.[183]

114. We have referred above to women being particularly vulnerable to the effects of insecurity and lack of access to justice. Saferworld reports that violence against women, including domestic violence, is prevalent.[184] The Head of DFID Nepal told us that the Department was supporting the Government's Violence Against Women programme which the Prime Minister was leading and which he had described as one of his top priorities. Nepal now has an action plan in place and the Prime Minister has declared 2010 as a year of action on violence against women.[185]

115. DFID Nepal's work on gender equality is governed by its Gender Equality Action Plan which focuses on four areas:

More and better jobs for women
Greater political voice for women
Focusing education support on women and excluded groups
Sustaining progress on maternal mortality

It also has an internal objective of "a more inclusive gender-balanced office and programme".[186]

116. DFID has ensured that its employment generation schemes provide equal opportunities for women, including in the Rural Access Programme (RAP) and the Livelihoods and Forestry Programme. DFID says that that RAP has enabled more than half of the beneficiaries to clear their debts "freeing women from the clutches of moneylenders".[187] The skills training programme we saw in Nepalgunj provided additional incentives to the private sector to train and employ disadvantaged groups. Higher payments were given for training women and the highest incentives were given to those who provided training for women from excluded groups such as Dalits. 60% of the beneficiaries of the scheme to date are women.[188] DFID is also providing £2 million to the World Bank's Adolescent Girls Initiative which will provide training and support to 4,400 young women. DFID says that earnings of participants in the programmes it supports are expected to be twice the national average.[189] DFID has also indicated that half of the 50,000 "green" jobs which its climate change funding is intended to support will go to women.[190]

117. In Surkhet in the Mid-West region, we visited a Muslim Women's Empowerment Project funded under DFID's Community Support Programme (CSP). Muslim women are one of the most excluded groups in Nepalese society. One of the elements of the CSP was "awareness raising of excluded groups for increased access to political participation and representation".[191] We were very impressed by the Chairwoman's account of the difference the project had made to her personally and to the 276 women in the group. The project had included a six-month literacy programme as well as income generation schemes including training in activities such as goat-raising. The Chairwoman said that the benefits of the group were that it encouraged women to meet together and had increased their confidence to tackle social issues such as domestic violence, multiple and child marriage and petty disputes. They could be united in tackling these issues, which made them stronger. DFID reports that anecdotal evidence about the CSP more broadly suggests that "Muslim women appear to have been empowered to voice their opinions, have increased their involvement in savings and credit schemes, and girls' enrolment in school has increased."[192]

118. DFID support has contributed to progress against a number of indicators of gender equality, including improved maternal health outcomes, parity in primary enrolment and increased representation of women in the Constituent Assembly and public bodies. This is very welcome. It is also essential that women are given support to find employment and build livelihoods. DFID has further plans for employment generation schemes which offer at least equal opportunities to women. We fully support these. It is also important that the social and cultural barriers to women's equal status in society are tackled, particularly the most severely affected such as Muslim and Dalit women. The Community Support Programme provided support to increase political participation and representation for excluded groups, including women. This programme has now ended. We request that DFID provides us with information on its plans for future support for excluded women in the period covered by the Country Business Plan.

Hunger and food security

119. DFID says that "food insecurity is a chronic problem in Nepal" with 40% of the population unable to meet their full food requirement. The price of rice rose by 30% in 2008 and price volatility is likely to continue.Women and children are worst affected by food insecurity.[193] Nepal is on track to meet the MDG 1 target for poverty reduction but off-track on the hunger target "to reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger". Half of all children are malnourished.[194]

120. To address malnutrition, DFID argues that "the complex interactions between health status, education of girls, and women's status and income" need to be considered. It is working with the Government and other donors to develop a country nutrition strategy and to agree "a common cross-sectoral approach to improving nutritional outcomes".[195] Given the devastating impact which malnutrition has globally, we have long argued that DFID should have a Nutrition Strategy in place.[196] This was finally published on 11 March. DFID says that it will focus on the six countries which are "home to half of all undernourished children under five in the world." Nepal is one of these focus countries.[197]

121. DFID provided £5.4 million to the World Food Programme (WFP) in 2008-09. We saw the work of the WFP in a remote area of Nepalgunj where DFID was also supporting the construction of rural roads to improve access to local towns. DFID informed us that, in December 2009, a lack of funds forced WFP to reduce the number of people it was supporting from 1.2 million to 600,000 just as the winter hunger period was beginning. DFID provided £5 million to fill the immediate gap and the UN Central Emergency Response provided another £8 million. This will allow the full 1.2 million people to be fed over the next three months, with DFID's contribution supporting 450,000. The support goes beyond food aid and includes cash-for-work on irrigation systems, micro-hydro projects and constructing trails.[198]

122. DFID is also assessing how to improve its wider food security and nutrition work. It plans to work with the Government and partners "to assess when food aid is the most appropriate transfer, when cash transfers are more effective, and when these approaches could be combined." It is also discussing a joint support programme with WFP to help the government target social protection programmes more effectively to support increased food security.[199]

123. Half of all children in Nepal are malnourished and more than a million people depend on food aid. DFID's long-awaited Nutrition Strategy has now been published. We have pressed for this, and for DFID to monitor hunger and nutrition more closely. We welcome Nepal's inclusion as one of the six countries on which the Strategy will focus. We recommend that, in response to this Report, DFID provide us with details of the timescale for implementation of the Strategy in Nepal and how it will help to ensure that tackling child malnutrition is prioritised by both donors and the Government. We would also welcome details of the longer-term support which DFID will provide for the World Food Programme's work in Nepal.

104 Ev 53 Back

105 DFID, Nepal Country Business Plan 2009-12, Oct 2009, Box 6 Back

106 Ev 61 and Country Business Plan, para 7 Back

107 Country Business Plan, para 7 Back

108 ibid Back

109 Q 25 Back

110 Country Business Plan, paras 8-10 Back

111 Country Business Plan, paras 48-51 Back

112 Ev 61 Back

113 DFID, Eliminating World Poverty: Building our Common Future, para 4.32. The other countries are: Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Yemen. Back

114 Eighth Report of Session 2008-09, DFID's Programme in Nigeria, HC 840-I, paras 38-39 Back

115 Ev 80 Back