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The Orientation cum consultation workshop for the formation of Local DRR Platform was organized by DPNet-Nepal under USAID Tayar Nepal's Capacity Enhancement for DRR&M Project on 17 September2021, in close coordination with the Field Officer of USAID TAYAR Nepal and DRR Focal Person of Rajapur Municipality, Bardiya. The program was chaired by Shiba Prasad Chaudhari, Mayor of Rajapur, Municipality, Bardiya, The Special Guest was Deputy Mayor, Mana Kumari Chaudhari,  and the guests were ward-chairpersons representatives from Government offices,  I/NGOs/ Private Sectors/ Media/ Academia.

The program was initiated by a welcome speech followed by Introduction, presentations, open discussion, and way forward. Altogether 29 participants from different sectors (Media, Community, government, semi-government, academia, I/NGOs, and Private sectors representative) joined the program.

Major Highlight

• Mr. Dharma Raj Neupane, Chief Administrative Officer, delivered welcome remarks and highlighted the objectives of the program. Though they have already formed the DRR Platform, they still have to understand the core things about the importance of the local level platform to reduce the loss and damage for  future disasters.
• Mr. Khusiram Tharu, DRR focal person, Rajapur, Municipality presented the Municipal DRR Platform Guideline which was prepared by a discussion with the team.  He informed that the Municipality had already formed a DRR committee comprising  28 members of stakeholders and the guideline was also approved by the Municipal executive committee. He briefly shared the objectives, provisions regarding the members in the committee, power, roles, and responsibility of the Subjective Committee
• Mr. Surya Bahadur Thapa, Chairperson of DPNet-Nepal and Member Secretary, National Platform Disaster Risk Reduction (NPDRR) delivered presentation about the brief introduction of DPNet–Nepal as a Secretariat of NPDRR, NPDRR Guideline and its implementation. His presentation included the brief history of NPDRR in Nepal, NPDRR information about the approval of NPDRR Guideline, nine different Subjective Committees of NPDRR. Moreover, he also emphasized the need of localization of NPDRR by extending it in Province and Local Level and the provisions related to it in the Guideline and shared the objectives of USAID/Tayar’s Capacity Enhancement for DRR&M project in relation to NPDRR.  He shared that the Constitution of Nepal has given the responsibility DRR&M to Local Level and the concurrent responsibility is given to Province and Federal Government. Hence, there is a need to localize the NPDRR. He said that the Province Level Platform for DRR will be formed in Karnali and SudurPaschim Province under this project and the project will also support to form the Local Level Platform in three Municipalities namely, Godavari of Kailali, Rajapur of Bardiya, and Tulsipur of Dang District. He further explained that this Municipal now needs to emphasize forming thematic groups to strengthen the DRR action  and have open collective ideas and support from all stakeholders. He also handed over the Nepali version of the Sphere Handbook 2018 and the Sendai Framework for DRR translated in Nepali by DPNet- Nepal to the Mayor and Deputy Mayor.

 Major Discussions

Rajapur Municipality is surrounded by water sources. It’s a  high risk municipality in terms of disaster.  The government and other stakeholders' joint effort is needed to prepare disaster management.
Along with other sectors the education sectors have been highly affected during the COVID 19 crisis and the quality of education seems poor. So, I need to discuss how to continue the learning and have preparedness and a response plan for future preparedness.
The Guideline can be reviewed as per need while forming the thematic Committee in the next upcoming meeting.
Importance of Gender Equality and Social Inclusion(GESI) mainstreaming in  DRR&M. Women and youth teams need to train regarding rescue and DRR knowledge enhancement. We also need to focus on women representatives in the DRR Platform Subjective Committee formation as well.
Coordination and consultation with Provincial and Federal level Platforms are important for learning sharing platforms and mutual support.

Review and Closing Remarks:

Mr. Shiba Prasad Chaudhari, Chairperson of the program delivered closing remarks explaining Rajapur's need to do a lot of work on preparedness and response on disaster risk reduction.  He said local Indigenous knowledge and external technology are both equally important. Concluding his remarks,  he gave the vote of thanks to,  DPNet team, presenters, guests, support agencies, and participants for their time and effort in making the event successful.