News

With its aim to operationalize the NPDRR Guideline, the Subjective Committee meeting of Donor/UN Agencies was organized by DPNet-Nepal on 20th July 2021. The program was organized under USAID/Tayar Nepal Capacity Enhancement for DRRM project. The program was chaired by Mr. Anil Pokhrel, Chief Executive of National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA). Mr. Surya Bahadur Thapa, Chairperson of DPNet-Nepal welcomed all participants and highlighted the objective and schedule of the program. He briefly shared the project activities in relation to the NPDRR and moderated the program. Altogether 33 participants(8 women and 25 men) joined the program.

Major Highlights

• Dr. Raju Thapa, General Secretary of DPNet-Nepal in his presentation entitled "NPDRR Guideline and its Implementation" included the introduction of the Platform, information regarding the request of UNISDRR to form the NPDRR in all countries, provisions concerning the formation of the Platforms in Province and Local Level. He also shared about the nine different Subjective Committees under the NPDRR and briefly shared his experiences about the process of finalization of NPDRR guidelines. Furthermore he shared the UN system's support to NPDRR and requested the UN and Donor community to support in localizing NPDRR in Nepal. Similarly, he added that due to the existence of NPDRR, Nepal has been able to represent as a Single Nepal delegation in International forums like AMCDRR, GPDRR. So there is a need to strengthen this platform since it is able to bring wider stakeholders in a single forum considering the whole of society approach.
• Mr. Bishnu Prasad Timilsina, Consultant shared the draft frame of the Subjective Committee guideline for Donor/UN Agencies within the provisions of NPDRR Guideline. He shared the objectives, scope, and major provisions regarding the membership in the committee, periodic meetings, authorities, roles and responsibility of the Subjective Committee. He also said that the draft will be shared with the Donor and UN Agencies for their feedback and finalization. He also said that it is open either to name the document Guideline or the Working Procedure.
• Mr. Prem Awasthi from UNRCO will coordinate with the concerned agencies to discuss the ToR and the Committee formation.

Major Discussion

• The momentum created by the Platform is very good, if we work together we can achieve the vision of NDRRMA to have a disaster resilient Nation by 2030. The draft framework shared seems inclusive, it’s a good aspect. Development partners will fit into the priority of NDRRMA.
• NDRRMA has to allocate an annual budget for DPNet-Nepal as a Secretariat of NPDRR. So let's not be project based, let's be an agenda based on organizing workshops.
• The UN System has its own framework to support the Government and is also involved in different types of groups. We need to have more inviting rather than binding clauses, so we need to have motivating clauses and rewrite the working procedure accordingly.
• Let's sort out the ToR and work more on it and then we can form a loose group rather than legally binding.
• There is a need to reactivate the NPDRR mechanism at the federal level and there is a need to localize in Province and Local Level aligning with SFDRR. It's a common platform for wider stakeholders to share the issues related to DRRM.
• The framework includes the inclusion of women as a Coordinator or as a Co-coordinator is a good aspect. Let's mention having at least 33% representation of women in a committee.
• While delivering humanitarian support, DPNet needs to prioritize more on leaving no one behind.

Closing

Ms. Luna Khadka, Program Coordinator of DPNet-Nepal thanked all DRR professionals representing UN/Donor Agencies for participating in the program. Similarly, she thanked USAID/Tayar Nepal for the collaboration to organize this program and staff of DPNet-Nepal and language interpreters for their time and effort in conducting the program successfully. Concluding the vote of thanks, she requested the UN and Donor community for their support in localizing NPDRR in Nepal. So that we can work together in building a disaster resilient nation.

Mr. Anil Pokhrel, Chief Executive of NDRRMA welcomed all invitees, DRR professionals working on DRRM in Donor and UN Agencies.  He shared about the risk that we are facing which cannot be solved by individuals and emphasized on working together in coordination and collaboration with wider stakeholders such as UN/Donor agencies, Government, Semi-Government, NGO, INGO, Private Sector, Disaster Affected community, Academia/Research Based Organization and Information Technology and Media.He shared the importance and works of the National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in the past in collaboration with DPNet. He said that the effort of NDRRMA is to adopt the international experiences in a local context. The issue of institutional strengthening of NPDRR, its working procedure, legal and institutional structure might be of interest to this Subjective Committee. Concluding his remarks he thanked everyone and closed the program.