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As a developing country Nepal has few resources to devote to climate change. But as of late last year it has started to receive money from something called the Green Climate Fund to both reduce its own emissions and adapt to climate change. So far $73 million has been earmarked from the Fund for two projects. But who decides how that money is spent? 

Today we’re talking with Tunga Rai from the Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities, or NEFIN. He thinks that climate change projects need to do a better job of incorporating the indigenous perspective. As usual, we recorded our conversation remotely so you might hear some strange squawks or notice delays — along with the occasional barking dog. 

By the way, after recording this interview I came across this document from the OECD showing that wealthy countries are far behind on their pledge to raise $100 billion for developing countries' climate change actions. The deadline is 2020. 

If you have any thoughts about this episode, connect with Nepal Now on social media or write to me. I’m at [email protected]. 

Resources

NEFIN Climate Change Partnership Programme

Green Climate Fund

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I obviously don’t know if it’s harder to be a woman in Nepal than in other places, but often it seems like it must be. 

Around 1,200 women here die each year giving birth, many from a simple post-delivery haemorrhage. (The fact that no one seems to know the exact number speaks volumes about the importance officialdom places on the issue). Tens of thousands of other women endure the condition known as uterine prolapse — where the uterus descends towards or through the vagina, the result of, among other reasons, child brides giving birth when their bodies are still not fully developed or of mothers returning to hard, physical labour too soon after giving birth. 

As in other countries, women in Nepal are bearing a heavier burden than usual during the COVID-19 pandemic, including caring for out-of-school children and homebound husbands. Family planning, already a challenge in a patriarchal society, has become more difficult as health facilities run out of supplies. Fearful of catching the coronavirus or unable to find transportation, one-half of pregnant women are shunning health facilities, skipping vital pre- and post-birth appointments. 

Despite this negative outlook, our guests on this episode did have some ideas for making life better for Nepal’s women. Pallavi Payal is a researcher and activist on women’s rights, with a focus on Nepal’s southern Madhesh, or Tarai, region. Samita Pradhan is Team Leader of the Women's Reproductive Rights Programme at the Centre for Agro-Ecology and Development. 

By the way, our next episode will the last in this first series by Nepal Now. Check out our social media to have a say on which topic we’ll be discussing. As always, you can like or follow the podcast on the usual players, including Apple and Google podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher. You can also connect with us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, or email me at [email protected]. 

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Deepak Rauniyar still feels queasy when he remembers the racism he faced growing up in Udaypur district in eastern Nepal. As one of few dark-skinned kids in the community, whose mother tongue was not Nepali, he was taunted by children and singled out for beatings by his headmaster. But as a college student looking for part-time work he soon discovered that journalism gave him the power to uncover the discrimination that pervaded life in the southern Madhesh region. He later honed those skills travelling the country writing radio dramas for BBC Media Action.

In 2010 Deepak and his wife, actress and filmmaker Asha Magarati, decided it was time to start telling stories from their own point of view,  with film as their medium.

Today, Deepak and Aasha live in New York City and are finalizing the script of their next project, tentatively called The Sky is Mine. It tells the story of a fair-skinned female police officer assigned to the Madhesh in the midst of communal tensions that would soon ignite. Like all their movies, this one is inspired by personal experience, explains Deepak, adding that telling the couple’s most personal story yet can be a frightening prospect.

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Deepak Rauniyar's website, with links to his films

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According to one of today’s guests, 1 in 5 working age Nepalis is overseas for employment at any one time. In 2019, the earnings sent home by these workers, known as remittances, totalled about $US8 billion, or 25% of Nepal’s gross domestic product, the economic value of its  output. 

COVID-19 hammered labour migration, and the lives of many Nepalis. Some remain stuck in countries far from home, jobless after being cast aside when local economies tanked and the Nepal government refused to let them fly home. Others walked or hitched rides, and were stuck in crude quarantine camps on Nepal’s border with India after the country locked down on March 24th. Those are just a few examples.

Yet even now, tens of thousands of Nepalis are preparing to leave their families and country, often for years at a time, to chase their dream of working abroad. 

Today we’re going to try and make sense of all of this with Bijaya Rai Shrestha, Founder and Chairperson of the Returnee Women Migrant Workers Group and Ramesh Sunam, an assistant professor at Waseda University in Tokyo and author of the just published book, The Remittance Village. 

Apologies in advance for any strange sounds: this was recorded remotely and Ramesh was in far-away Tokyo. Also, a note for those not familiar with Nepal – both Bijaya and Ramesh refer to each other as Bijaya-ji and Ramesh-ji, an honorific similar to saying Mr or Miss in English.  

Resources

Shuvayatra app for migrant workers (in Nepali) 

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There’s no doubt that today COVID-19 is the main issue in Nepal and in most parts of the world, so I decided when I started planning this podcast that it would be the subject of the first episode. But I also knew that I didn’t want to discuss the daily news — case numbers, quarantine centres, equipment shortages, government mismanagement, etc.

Instead, because this podcast is all about examining issues in Nepal with an eye to doing things differently and contributing to change, I wanted to focus on something far more positive: how Nepalis have rallied to help one another during this crisis, a response that started even before the government announced the lockdown on 24 March.

I was very fortunate to be joined by NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati (Facebook, Instagram). Nayantara is doing very interesting creative work in Kathmandu that stretches conventional boundaries of visual storytelling, research, pedagogy, and collective action. In 2007, she co-founded photo.circle, a platform that facilitates learning, exhibition making, and publishing opportunities for Nepali photographers. She is also the co-founder of  Nepal Picture Library and co-founder and Festival Director of Photo Kathmandu, an international event that takes place in Kathmandu every two years.

Resources

-  Report on humanitarian aid by Overseas Development Institute

-  Related ODI report: Aid in Nepal following 2017 floods

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COVID-19 arrived in Nepal at the end of January, 2020, but it was really only in May when it hit, as tens of thousands of migrant workers started arriving home from neighbouring India. As in many other countries, rich and poor, the pandemic has accentuated Nepal’s fault lines, including its health system, inequality and poor governance. And just as in other countries, the time seems ripe to question the direction that Nepal was taking.

That’s where this podcast comes in — to ask, Can things be done differently to build a better Nepal?

We’ll examine issues like migration and employment, agriculture, discrimination, and the environment through the eyes of people who see differently than those who have dominated debates, and power, in Nepal for decades. Many of our guests will be younger people who are living and working in unique ways. Together we will attempt to identify concrete steps to moving forward and achieving a better country.

Hosted by Marty Logan.

Special thanks to Nikunja Nepal.

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Music: amaretto needs ice ... by urmymuse (c) copyright 2018 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/urmymuse/57996 Ft: Apoxode

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Nepal Now is produced and hosted by Marty Logan.