Climate change network nepal

News Detail

Stakeholders Discuss the Progress and Implementation Status of CC Policy and Programmes in Nepal

Kathmandu, 26 March 2012

A roundtable discussion on Progress and Implementation Status of Climate Change Policy and Programmes in Nepal was held successfully with participation of around 60 representatives from different government and non government organizations including development activists from 9 districts outside Kathmandu.

Mr. Batu Krishna Uprety, Ministry of Environment (MoEnv.) shared the implementation status of climate change policy and programmes in Nepal. Five out of seven targets in climate change policy are time bound and two are open ended, Mr. Upreti said. He accepted that there is slow progress in meeting the goal set by the policy. Lack of enough resources and focus of MoEnv on other initiatives such as establishment of environment department are the main reason for this delay, said Uprety. He also updated briefly about the initiatives taken by Ministry of Environment in 2011 and plan for 2012. National framework for LAPA is approved and PPCR, SREP and NAPA component 1, 3 and 4 are the major projects in progress, he shared. He also shared updates on preparation for upcoming international conference of mountain countries on climate change, which will be held on 5 - 6 April, 2012 in Nepal.

In second presentation, Mr. Sunil Acharya from Clean Energy Nepal (CEN) shared the learning's and insights from district orientations on NAPA held on 8 different districts in the last one year. He notified that the level of information in district level is limited and in some cases, the stakeholders are not even aware of NAPA and climate change policy. The local people are not aware about framework which says 80% funding would be spent at local level. Also, the framework is not clear on how this would be implemented, Mr. Acharya added. However, there are some good initiatives such as district level networks on climate change are initiated in some districts and in few cases, DDCs have also started allocating fund for climate change related activities, he mentioned.

Mr. Ramesh Bhushal, environment journalist shared his independent analysis on challenges and way forward for effective implementation of policy and programmes on climate change. Climate change policy is a weakly polished document compared to other existing policies, it has talked about everything but has materialized very few of them, Mr. Bhushal shared in his presentation. He highlighted that implementing agencies are unidentified for its implementation. He also pointed out that authorities have not cared to make the key climate change related document available to the public. He suggested that effective information dissemination through small investment in website could be the first step to move ahead. Harmonization with other concerned ministries and building trust as a coordinating ministry rather than acting as authority to execute activities could be the best strategy for MoEnv, he suggested.

Participants also expressed their concern on not meeting the deadline set by the climate change policy. We are good in policy formulation but poor in implementation, participants expressed their dissatisfaction. However, some participants also suggested stakeholders to support MoEnv and other concerned authorities to work jointly for the effective implementation of newly formulated policy. The discussion also highlighted the need of implementation guidelines for climate change policy, NAPA and other programmes. Mr. Ganesh Shah, Former Minister, MoEnv said "Resource is not a problem for Nepal; we need to work on knowledge generation and dissemination."

The program was successful in discussing critically on the progress, implementation status and way forward for climate change policy and programmes in Nepal. The event was organized by Clean Energy Nepal (CEN) on behalf of Climate Change Network Nepal (CCNN) with support from the European Union and Oxfam GB Nepal.

Add Your Comment speech