Aid suspension provokes criticism

One of Nepal's most effective poverty alleviation projects, the Rural Community Infrastructure Works (RCIW), in Kalikot district, 400 km northwest of the capital, Kathmandu, has been indefinitiely suspended. The action has drawn criticism from national NGOs, government agencies and the communities affected by the decision. On 15 May, the German Development Agency (GTZ), the UK's Department for International Development (DfID), the Dutch Cooperation Agency (SNV) and the United Nation's World Food Programme (WFP) decided to suspend the RCIW as a protest after Maoist insurgents had assaulted a local female development worker involved in the project. Debkala Acharya, from the Himalayan Community Development Resource Centre, was severely beaten by Maoist cadres and is still recovering from her injuries. The RCIW is funded by the four bilateral agencies and the government. It is based in the country's poorest districts and through its food for road construction work scheme, it helps improve the livelihoods of families most vulnerable to food insecurity. Kalikot is regarded as one of country's most impoverished districts with an average life expectancy of less than 42 years. The scarcity of food means that malnutrition is rampant and is one of the main reasons for the high mortality levels. "The saddest part was that the decision [to suspend the programme] was taken solely by the aid agencies themselves without discussing with the local communities in our villages where the project is based," Kalikot resident and community development worker Min Shahi of Karnali, from the Integrated Rural Development and Research Centre ( KIRDRC) told IRIN. Shahi had travelled to the capital to convince the aid agencies to resume their project. He added that he also came with the message from his fellow villagers that the assault on one person should not result in the suffering of nearly 100,000 people who say they totally depend on the project for their survival. Representatives of the donors say that the Maoists have seriously violated basic operating guidelines for programmes in Nepal, signed up to by 10 aid agencies. "We are also not happy at all with the suspension but we cannot put our staff at risk. We don't have any other way," Ulf Wernicke, country director of GTZ told IRIN. "We expect a commitment from the CPNM [Communist Party of Nepal - Maoists] and the suspension will prevail until we have assurances of full security for our staff," added Wernicke. The Ministry for Local Development (MoLD) a key partner in the RCIW, is also unhappy about the suspension. "The government was not included in the decision and we are not in consensus with it," Basanta Raj Gautam, MoLD's national programme coordinator of RCIW, told IRIN. "If they had talked with us about it, we wouldn't have agreed," added Gautam, who had just returned from a monitoring assignment in Kalikot. The ministry provides funding for both management work and construction materials. In the last month, about half of the proposed road construction had been completed. Out of 250 mt of rice, about 100 have already been supplied to the 10 km road construction projects linking remote Dailekh, south of Kalikot, to the Karnali highway in northwest Nepal. "If we had continued, we would have finished 18 km by this year. Now the government's work has also stopped due to the suspension," Gautam told IRIN. NGOs are asking donor agencies to reconsider the decision to suspend the programme. "We understand this is to pressurise the Maoists to respect humanitarian assistance but such direct action affecting vulnerable groups is not really helpful," Gauri Pradhan, president of National Human Rights Alliance, told IRIN. In a bid to reassure key donor agencies, some NGOs have offered to help prevent violence and intimidation towards aid workers in future. "We have to overcome challenges as development workers working in conflict areas. Ultimately, the poor and most vulnerable groups of people would suffer," Shanta Lal Mulmi, general secretary of the National Federation of NGOs (NFN), told IRIN.