Following strong criticism and protests from farmers and civil society members, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperative (MoAC) has decided to review the structure and modus operandi of technical assistance team that is drafting a new 20-year agriculture vision document -- Agriculture Development Strategy (2015-2035).
The ministry has also formed a committee to investigate why farmers were not represented in the team, which was formed last year.
"Points raised by farmers about the way the government is developing the Agriculture Development Strategy (ADS) are pretty valid. It was wrong not to ensure farmers´ participation in such a crucial task," said Nandan Kumar Datta, minister for agriculture and cooperatives.
Datta, who on Thursday held talks with representatives of farmers´ organizations and related civil society organizations in the presence of senior ministry officials and members of technical team drafting ADS, said that he would work to review the team.
"I have directed senior ministry officials to work to accommodate the farmers´ concerns," Datta told Republica. "I also want to know why farmers were excluded, so a committee has been formed to find out the reason," he added.
During the talks, Minister Datta assured the farmers and civil society members that the reviewed team would have maximum possible representation of farmers and organizations working to protect farmers´ interests.
The government had initiated process to develop ADS -- a document that will replace the Agriculture Perspective Plan 1995-2015 -- in 2011 and had formed a 33-member technical team by including former bureaucrats and foreign consultants about a year ago to draft it.
The document is being prepared with technical assistance from the Asian Development Bank, World Bank and USAID, among others. The government has allocated US$ 2 million (about Rs 160 million) for developing ADS.
However, representatives of farmers´ organizations as well as civil society groups during Thursday´s meeting with Minister Datta said the whole idea of getting 20-year agricultural vision document prepared by technocrats and foreign consultants, who have little idea of farmers´ needs and concerns, was wrong.
"We informed the minister that our farmers have already suffered a lot because of implementation of similarly drafted APP. We cannot afford to compromise this time -- as ADS will affect the whole agricultural sector for decades till 2035," said Prem Dangal, general secretary of the All Nepal Peasants Federation (ANPF), who was present at the meeting.
Farmers´ representatives strongly protested the approach of preparing such a crucial document behind closed doors, saying that vision document prepared by "so called agro-experts and foreign experts" might not address farmers´ concerns and agricultural reality of the country.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Agriculture minister agrees to review ADS draft team
Nepal requests support for enhancing productivity, quality
Nepal on Thursday requested the trading and development partners to support it in setting up quality laboratories and testing facilities in order to help the country meet and certify that its products meet international standards.
Commerce Secretary Lal Mani Joshi made such a request while speaking at the concluding session of Nepal´s trade policy review (TPR) at the head office of World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva.
According to a press release issued by the office of permanent mission in Geneva, Joshi emphasized that Nepal has accorded high priority to improve trade facilitation measures and taken concrete steps toward reducing transaction costs by simplifying the trade and transit related procedures. The TPR meeting of Nepal had begun from Tuesday.
During the TPR, a number of delegations from USA, Japan, India and China among others had raised a number of questions related to Nepal´s compliance with WTO commitments, trade and investments. "Joshi responded to those questions and thanked the WTO members for their appreciation of Nepal´s efforts in liberalizing trade and investment," reads the release.
Joshi, who highlighted Nepal´s efforts at promoting investments such as formation of high-level Investment Board, also expressed commitment that Nepal would continue its efforts to promote international trade by reforming investment regime. "We are trying our best to attract investment in infrastructure, particularly hydro-electricity and transport connectivity, and in other priority sectors such as tourism and agriculture," the release quoted Joshi as saying.
He also requested all the trading and development partners to enhance and scale up their support to Nepal in terms of market access and enhancing productivity.
As the Chair of the TPR body, Ambassador Eduardo Munoz of Colombia stated that the first-ever TPR of Nepal has given a better understanding of development in Nepal, particularly its trade and related policies and practices. Nepal joined WTO in 2004.
Finnish delegation commits support to women entrepreneurs
Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) and a visiting delegation from Finland on Thursday discussed enhancing the capacity of Nepali women in order to empower them and foster entrepreneurship.
FNCCI President Suraj Vaidya and Helena Arlander, investment director of Finnfund, led their respective institutions during the meeting attended by FNCCI members and parliamentarians and bankers from Finland.
The Finnish team is in Nepal to assess the situation of Nepali women entrepreneurs and to identify the areas wherein they need assistance, reads a FNCCI statement.
“The FNCCI officials and visiting Finnish delegation discussed challenges faced by Nepali women entrepreneurs, like poor access to loan, higher interest rates, weak access to market and low level of skills,” reads the statement. Women entrepreneurs, who were present at the meeting, also shared the challenges they are facing at present.
In his welcome remarks, Vaidya highlighted initiatives taken by the FNCCI in order to develop entrepreneurship among women and promote women entrepreneurs, such as the ´one district, one product´ program and different trainings and capacity-building workshops at different levels.
He also requested the Finnish delegation to support Nepali women entrepreneurs by transferring new technologies in the remote areas and running programs that enhance the quality of their productions.
In response, Arlander expressed commitment to provide all possible support to Nepali women entrepreneurs in areas they deemed important.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
'Be alert while transacting with BFIs'
They said service providers in Nepal are generally not sensitive to consumers´ rights.
"Consumers should be careful since many of the policies that are supposed to protect consumers´ rights have not been properly implemented," said Sanjeev Subba, CEO of the National Banking Training Institute (NBTI). At the same time, he also requested the banks to be more responsible toward consumers interests and serve them in fair manner.
The theme for this year´s consumers rights day was ´our money, our choice: campaigning for real choices in financial services´. Kalyani Shah, president of the SEWA Nepal even accused the financial sector players of exploiting consumers.
“We have to raise voice against those who exploit consumers,” she said.
On the occasion, Advocate Baburam Aryal presented a paper on safety procedures that consumers should follow while transacting with banks and financial institutions. “Banking consumers who use ATM should only use it where they feel comfortable and safe,” Aryal said.
He further added that consumers should keep the slips that they receive from ATMs after withdrawing money as a record since that could be used as proof if there is any problem with transaction and suggested to customers to cross-check the slip´s details with bank statements.
Maoist faction's protest puts SEZ law in limbo
Initially, the lack of clarity over social protection and objection of trade union on provisions like ´no extreme forms of strikes´ in the zone had prevented its ratification. Now that trade unions have softened their stance on the bill, MoI was hopeful of getting the bill endorsed by the parliament.
However, its bid to retable the bill in the parliament has hit yet another roadblock. A faction of ruling UCPN (Maoist) has strongly protested it, terming it as an ´anti-national´ document. Maoist Chief Whip Dev Gurung has even warned of stalling the parliament if the MoI tabled it.
“After gathering dust in the parliament for three long years, we had taken steps to reintroduce the bill in the parliament, hoping positive outcome due to changed political context,” said industry minister Anil Kumar Jha.
However, Jha has rolled back his initiative following such strong-worded reaction from Gurung.
The Maoist party´s resistance has come despite Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai´s clear statement that the bill was crucial to lure some $1 billion worth of foreign investment that he has targeted to achieve in the Investment Year 2012/13. Bhattarai is also the vice-chairman of UCPN (Maoist).
Bhattarai has also cited its enactment as one of his priority works in the Immediate Action Plan (IAP) for Economic Growth and Prosperity. “The bill of SEZ will be immediately approved by the Parliament,” reads the IAP.
Jha said Gurung´s reaction was surprising, mainly as it contravenes with what his own party leader has said.
Gurung, however, said his party has different opinion about the bill. “First, it was prepared by the World Bank. Secondly, it damns labors´ rights and protection of natural resources. It is not acceptable to us,” Gurung stated.
He even ruled out the necessity of SEZ law, arguing that there were already multiple laws in the country to encourage inward flow of foreign investment and exports.
However, officials having knowledge on the contents of the bill, said Gurung´s reaction was based on his naivety. “Obviously he has not studied the bill. Otherwise, he would have known, the bill protects the labor rights and is sensitive to other issues as well. If that was not the case, trade unions won´t have agreed to it,” a senior official at industry ministry said.
Rameshwar Khanal, economic advisor to the PM, agreed with him. “The only difference is that the SEZ bill does not allow workers to halt productions while striking. Otherwise, the labor rights, including collective bargain, are all protected in the bill,” he added.
The latest objection by the UCPN (Maosit), meanwhile, has deferred yet again the chances of early operationalization of already built SEZ and infrastructures, including SEZ in Bhairahawa, for which the government has already spent millions of rupees. It has also put the fate of other proposed SEZs, including those in Birgunj, Panchkhal, Jhapa and Dhangadhi, among others in limbo.
If the government dragged feet on enacting the law, officials stated it would adversely impact the Investment Year as well. “Deferring the long-committed law that pledges minimum basic assurances to investors will only taint our image. In such a situation, how can we push our case strongly to lure foreign investment?” wondered the MoI official.
Nepal's trade policy discussed at WTO
“In Nepal´s first trade policy review meeting after joining WTO, secretary Joshi said Nepal has pursued structural reforms in all the sectors of economy and that the country has made considerable process in economic liberalization,” Shankar D Bairagi, Nepal´s permanent representative in Geneva told Republica over phone.
The review meeting kicked off on Tuesday. Nepal had joined WTO in 2004.
According to Bairagi, Joshi also answered to queries raised by representatives of Nepal´s major trading partners. “He will respond to the remaining queries on Thursday. Representatives of US, China and India, among others, are raising questions about Nepal´s investment environment and infrastructure development,” added Bairagi.
Bairagi further said major trading and development partners appreciated Nepal´s progress towards economic liberalization and strong commitment in compliance to the WTO norm.
According to a press release issued by Nepal´s permanent mission in Geneva, secretary Joshi told the meeting that Nepal had high-level Investment Board aiming to create investment friendly environment for both domestic and foreign investors.
“The Nepali delegation also pointed out number of challenges and constraints in Nepal´s efforts to promote international trade,” the release added.
Bairagi said Christine Hochstatter, alternate permanent representative of Germany, as the discussant, commented on reports of the Government of Nepal as well as of the WTO Secretariat and suggested measures for further reform of Nepal´s trade sector.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Ministry to address farmers' concerns
So far, the ministry had assigned a 33-member technical assistance team, one-third of which are foreign consultants, to draft the document. However, such a closed-door approach had drawn flak from various farmers associations as well as MoAC officials themselves.
"We might have to rethink the way the team has been formed and the way it functions, particularly as it might later pose problem in owning the document," Dr Hari Dahal, joint-secretary and spokesperson of the MoAC, told Republica on Tuesday.
The Ministry has even called a consultation meeting of the stakeholders on March 15 to review the whole approach of drafting ADS.
Various farmers´ groups had protested the approach, mainly expressing fear that close-door preparation of such a crucial document by ´so called agro-experts and foreign experts´ might not address their concerns.
"The methodology used in preparing ADS is almost similar to that of APP. As APP was totally a failure, adoption of same method has raised question over ADS being a better document," said Prem Dangal, general secretary of the All Nepal Peasants Federation (ANPF).
Some of the MoAC officials too had challenged the approach, saying that it might lead to lack of ownership by various ministries.
"The 20-year vision document will deal on multi-sectors like irrigation, agricultural inputs, and other crucial sub-sectors. It is always appropriate to let the respective ministries formulate the related set of strategies, instead of preparing them by MoAC," said an official at MoAC.
Dahal agreed with the official and even admitted that APP failed because it was not fully owned by the line ministries and agencies supposed to implement the action plan. Also reduction in budgetary allocations on the sector had hit its implementation.
"We are having a meeting with farmers and other stakeholders to hear their voices," Dahal said, "We will consider their concerns seriously."
The government is preparing the ADS with the technical assistance of various donor agencies, including Asian Development Bank, World Bank and United State Agency for International Development (USAID), among others.
Two-thirds of the members in the drafting committee led by Francesco Goletti, a policy and institutional specialist and president of Agrifood Consulting International- New York University, are former government officials.
"Our concern is the team has no representation from farmers´ organization and civil society groups working in the agriculture sector," stated Dangal.
MoAC officials said the government has allocated $2 million (around Rs 160 million) to prepare the ADS and the team has been asked to submit it within two years.