Written evidence submitted by Christian
Solidarity Worldwide - Nepal
INTRODUCTION
1. This submission to the International Development
Committee is in response to their inquiry on DfID's work in 2009-10.
It focuses on Nepal wherein Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW)
has two specific areas of concern. First, CSW has for fifteen
years been closely involved in an educational project, in the
construction and development of a new all-age school in Hetauda.
During this period, CSW has been concerned with educational disadvantages
caused not only by the caste system and disparities in family
wealth, but by the status of girls and women in Nepali society.
Second, CSW is also concerned with progress towards a new constitution
in Nepal, which complies fully with the provisions of the international
human rights conventions to which Nepal is a State Party.
PROGRESS TOWARDS
MDG 2
2. Providing uplift to the poor and the most
socially-excluded is essential to Department for International
Development (DfID) work. In its response to "Millennium Development
Goal (MDG) 2", DfID rightly includes the need to provide
good educational opportunities to Dalits, and particularly Dalit
girls.
3. This is something which the Solidarity International
Academy, a high-quality independent school at Hetauda, has been
doing for fifteen years, with equal numbers of free places for
Dalit and tribal boys and girls for up to 400 children at any
one time. At least 100 of these children are boarders who come
from poor rural villages in the Terai, and would never have such
opportunities. All independent schools in Nepal are expected to
give at least 2% free places to children in need, but the academy
gives 30%.
4. This is Commended as a Higher Target to which
DfID Subsidies Could Aspire.
PROGRESS TOWARDS
MDG 3
5. MDG 3 aims to promote gender equality and
empower women, and, in particular, to "Eliminate gender disparity
in primary and secondary education… and at all levels of
education by 2015." The indicators by which progress is to
be judged are:
- · Ratios
of girls to boys in primary, secondary and tertiary education;
- · Share
of women in wage employment in the non-agricultural sector;
- · The
proportion of seats held by women in national parliament.
6. Although progress at a national level in women's
status has been given a huge boost by the electoral system which
has resulted in 33% of the seats in the Constituent Assembly being
filled by women, progress for women in other spheres has been
painfully slow.
7. DfID is committed to promoting gender equality
in Nepal. However, the Annual Report makes no mention of secondary
education, where the proportion of girls entering and continuing
in secondary education still lags behind boys. Recent evidence
from practitioners working in the field is consistent with the
Nepal Demographic and Health Survey in 2006, which showed 45.7%
of boys were attending secondary schooling compared to 37.8% of
girls, and with UNESCO statistics from 2007, which showed the
ratio of boys to girls as 29% to 25%. While statistics reported
for primary education are clearly an improvement on statistics
from earlier years, the discrepancy between boys and girls in
education stubbornly remains throughout the age ranges. It is
consistently asserted by Nepali educationalists that, in a family
with both boys and girls, priority will always be given to a boy's
education, and if family income is a problem, girls are less likely
to be allowed to stay on into secondary schooling.
8. It is not yet clear that DfID funding of state
education in Nepal has had a distinct impact on the continuing
imbalance in boys and girls in secondary education, nor whether
DfID has a clear plan to address such gender inequalities. These
questions merit Parliamentary scrutiny.
9. There is also an unaddressed problem in Nepal
of access to quality education for girls from poor and "low"-caste
backgrounds. The previous United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)
Minister for Women and Girls, Pampha Bhusal, suggested that a
rapid boost to the position of women might arise from a special
pilot initiative (which could be seen as a scholarship scheme)
for able girls from the "lowest" caste backgrounds,
by which girls' hostels were established in ten suitable independent
schools, by which 1,000 girls might be given a strong education
to higher secondary level. Although this could be regarded as
a selective system, the fact that it was suggested by a member
of the UCPN (Maoist) might commend it as a practicable solution
to the absence of well-qualified women from the socio-economically
weakest sections of Nepali society, and so help to promote an
inclusive society from which no persons are excluded by virtue
of their class or caste origin.
10. DfID might consider supplementing its support
for state education with additional measures to provide educational
opportunities to girls from the Dalit and tribal populations which
make up a significant proportion of Nepal's population.
SUPPORTING THE
CONSTITUTION-DRAFTING
PROCESS
11. There is no mention in the Annual Report
of DfID's contributions to the successful promulgation of a new
constitution in Nepal. This process is being supported by the
British Embassy and EU Missions. However, DfID could have a stronger
role in supporting grassroots awareness of human rights. This
would help to make protections of human rights as meaningful as
possible.
12. It has been CSW's experience that the activities
of the BBC World Service Trust in producing and broadcasting radio
and television programmes on elements of the constitution have
proven valuable.
13. The further development of human rights education
amongst civil society could be supported by DfID, and there are
numerous civil society groups capable of implementing such education,
if they were to receive the requisite funding.
SUPPORTING SECULAR
DEMOCRACY
14. Nepal's transition from a Hindu monarchy
to a secular republic requires strong institutions to support
and protect religious pluralism. Religiously-motivated violence
and discrimination remains commonplace across south Asia. This
is why the Inter-Religious Council has an important role in Nepal,
which has been officially recognized by the government, but it
has not been officially funded.
15. The protection of freedom of religion or
belief in the new constitution has been strongly supported by
the FCO. However, if this freedom is to be implemented, institutions
such as the Inter-Religious Council require the resources to be
effective and influential.
16. In a country where religious plurality and
tolerance has yet to be firmly established, what support can DfID
offer in future to help this inter-religious co-operation element,
so vital to a stable and pluralist democracy?
September 2010
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