Saferworld – 7th Quarterly Report – AID-367-F-13-00001

The project aims to contribute to an environment shaped by trust and strong social ties between communities, including conflicting groups and local authorities, making them resilient to social divides, insecurity, and conflict. The project has three expected results: breaking down barriers to peaceful dialogue, increasing mutual understanding and appreciation of grievances between conflicting groups, and enabling state actors to integrate lessons learnt into conflict-sensitive development and rehabilitation programming. The project focuses on 9,000 hard-to-reach and at-risk young people, including former ex-combatants, in five districts of Nepal: Kailali, Surkhet, Banke, Bardiya, and Sunsari. Secondary audiences for the project are government stakeholders and decision makers at the district and national level. The project targets 3 Village Development Committees (VDCs) in each district. In the reporting quarter, the national context in Nepal largely revolved around drafting the new constitution. Despite rounds of bilateral and multilateral dialogue between major political parties and alliances, the Constituent Assembly failed to promulgate the constitution by 22 January 2015. The security situation remained more peaceful than expected, despite an extended protest program scheduled by an alliance of political parties led by UCPN-M, CPN-M (Baidhya), and Federal Limbuwan State Council (FLSC). In the backdrop of the lapsed deadline, the CA chair formed a 73-member Questionnaire Committee amidst protest by UCPN Maoist-led alliance. The Committee was supposed to start working for five days, which was revised to 11 days, to submit its report with questionnaires to be asked to the general public on the issues to be included in the constitution. Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and Commission on Investigation of Disappeared Persons (CIDP) were formed with complete members on 10 February 2015, chaired by Surya Kiran Gurung and Lokendra Mallik respectively. In the working districts, all VDCs have accomplished the VDC councils in the reporting quarter. In Banke, cases related to domestic violence have not decreased, with 210 cases related to divorce registered during the reporting period. Banke's District Court sent back 103 cases for mediation, but only 25 cases have been resolved through this mechanism. In Sunsari, issues related to religion are escalating gradually in the district, where Christian supporters launched door-to-door programs and distributed pamphlets and brochures. During the reporting quarter, activities under Milestones 9.2, 10.1, and 21 were completed, and progress has been made towards achieving Milestone 5.1.1 and 10.2. A validation workshop was organized among research participants to collect their feedback on findings that will assist in shaping the report. The workshop was held in Thakurdwara, Bardiya, and attended by community members, political party members, conflict victims, Reconciliation and Development Forum (RDF) and Youth Group (YG) members, and former combatants from each of the five CICU working districts. The psychosocial strategy and corresponding service-provider directory have been developed during the 7th quarter. The purpose of the strategy and directory is to outline ways to refer community members who need psychosocial counseling to the relevant service providers, agencies, or individuals at the VDC or district level. Consultation meetings were organized with YG and RDF members, local communities, health institutions, and other organizations involved in psychosocial counseling to prepare the directory.