Nepal, one of the poorest countries in the world, recently witnessed a decade-long Maoist insurgency. Public service delivery became irregular, infrastructure fell into disarray and poor people’s livelihoods were disrupted. With the support of DFID, the NGO Rural Reconstruction Nepal (RRN) implemented a wide-ranging rural community development project in 16 conflict-affected districts from 2003 to 2008. Its experiences, now compiled in the form of a briefing note, provide insights into the feasibility of poverty reduction activities in conflict-affected environments.
Designed in a participatory way, the project covered a range of activities including irrigation and hydropower, school building and furniture support in addition to micro-enterprise and institutional development. In consultation with local government institutions and development actors, project activities were targeted particularly at conflict-affected areas where trust-building also formed a core part of the intervention.
The programme was designed to deliver both immediate as well as medium-term benefits for target communities. While irrigation support helped improve food security, livelihood support activities allowed communities to generate income through self-employment activities in livestock, candle-making and beekeeping, amongst others. Women were also enabled to engage in income-generating activities by making safe drinking water more readily available thereby reducing their workloads. Communities were trained in problem-solving strategies in resources management and in social organisation and mobilisation by forming water user groups and saving and credit associations, for instance.
Since communities were encouraged and enabled to identify their development needs, take initiatives and contribute resources to the programme from the start, project activities have been sustained. In line with its exit strategy, the user groups formed by RRN were converted into Operation and Maintenance Committees which were provided with administrative and financial training. Since the end of the project, these committees have raised local funds to continue development interventions in project areas.
The brief points out that the programme was designed and implemented in a cost-effective way, utilising local skills and resources to the extent possible, and since benefits were shared equitably among the target communities, RRN’s efforts are likely to bear fruit for some time to come.
