A knowledge organisation with a focus on democracy

From January 31st to February 2nd MS held its annual meeting, starting with a festive celebration of MS Nepal 20th anniversary at the elegant hotel Yak and Yeti in Kathmandu.

Photo: Nynne Haugaard

The anniversary was celebrated with friends from the past as well as the present. Speeches looking ahead with hopes for at brighter future and back at the impressive load of work done so far  right from the very beginning at the Sano Thimi production school and to present day partnerships, were held by country director Sten Andreasen, former DW Niels Axel who has lived in Katmandu on and of since the early days of MS Nepal and dr. Suresh Raj Sharma, who assisted the first director Knud Hartmann in the creation of a Danish volunteer programme in Nepal.

Umeshji receives anniversary present Photo: Nynne Haugaard

The celebration also included the 20^th anniversary of a very dear staff member - Umesh Regmi, who has received and trained Danish DW's right from the beginning, among many others two of the guests Poul Erik and Inga Bertelsen who were the first Danish development workers to arrive in Kathmandu (read their story on this page later this month).  

A frustrated bideshi: The misunderstandings of intercultural co-operation Photo: Anne Mette Nordfalk

After greetings and speeches the misunderstandings of intercultural cooperation was performed with great enthusiasm by the Kathmandu based MS partner Aarohan who had managed to put together a small play, which even for those of us who do not yet understand nepali, was very humorous. 

Annual Meeting 2007
The annual meeting took place just outside Kathmandu in Lalitpur
village resort where the 108 participants were lined up in rows like
an enormous school class in a large conference room. However, unlike a
school class the participants were extremely active in terms of
critical and sharp debate on the many subjects touched upon. One old
friend and former employee Kesang commented that this ability to be
critical has developed over the years among the partners and that it
was obvious that old partners very more vocal than new comers. 

Is Nepal in peace at present?
This interesting question was raised by Michelle Parlevliet, senior
researcher at the Danish Embassy, who delivered food for thought in a
clear cut presentation on Peace building and Conflict Transformation
in Nepal. Michelle Parlevliet pointed out that even though the peace
process has to some extent included the Nepali people there are still
a great lack of ability to include other voices than that of the 7+1
parties in the process of building a democratic Nepal and a lack of
transparency and linkages between centre and periphery and between
elite and grass root levels.
Michelle also made the interesting point that the present situation in
Terai reflects some general problems of Nepal: "Those in power do not
listen unless violent action is taken and chaos is created", she said
and pointed out that for peace to be restored successfully the
government of Nepal has to learn to listen to the people before
violent action is taken.

For the work of MS and its partners Michelle had the following very concrete suggestions:

"In terms of the system of government, values, relationships and
diversity of interest: Do not just consider what but how (things should be done), consider who (to implement and to receive)  and acknowledge the importance of linkages vertically as well as horizontally. Facilitate space for dialogue, encourage visioning (that future do we want?) and be very self reflective", were her advice, and rounded up emphasising that "the change that is possible should never be underestimated". 

Michelle Parlevliet Photo: Nynne Haugaard

MS democracy focus – guidelines from Denmark
On the second day of the Annual Meeting, MS' relatively new secretary
general Frans Mikael Jansen presented the thoughts behind the choice
of democracy as an overall focus for MS.
The focus was decide upon just over a year ago by MS leaders in
Copenhagen. The work done to concretise the focus has been a struggle
of MS up to now, stalling the finalisation of the new MS Nepal
strategy paper and henceforth the finalising of a large number of new
partnership agreements.
Frans Mikael Jansen explained that the change in political climate and
subsequent dramatic decline in funds from the danish state has urged
MS to decide upon a particular focus for its work. By choosing
democracy MS will build its capacity as a knowledge organisation thus
being able to strengthen the quality of advice to its partners.
Subsequently, all kinds of service delivery are no longer the task of
MS.
After this brief presentation Sten Andreasen took over and explained that democracy should be seen as a means for poverty alleviation, in terms of 'representation of the people' and 'good governance as well as a way of life'. In practise the focus allocates at least 50% of the capacity to build local government, at least 30 % for land rights and anti corruption, fair trade and conflict management and the rest for
innovation of new approaches (see annual report for further information). After the presentation some were satisfied, while some argued for the importance of including less abstract goals "you can't eat words and a focus on democracy is alot of words" as one development worker put forward.
The answer from secretary general Frans Mikael Jansen was rather straight forward: "lots of things are worth while but MS cannot do it all", was his remark.

Good governance in practice

Good governance was a main theme for the annual meeting as thisconcept is closely linked with the MS understanding of democracy. There more than half a day was reserved for an open space workshop were participant discussed six different aspects of good local governance. The six topics discussed were participation, equity, rule of law, transparency, accountability or consensus and the outcome of
the workshops was supposed to make up a catalogue of ideas for the work of MS and its partners. Many participants found the discussions interesting and fruitful, despite the limited time for the broad topics. Awareness was one of the main issues in all groups, as Sten Andreasen noted, when he was summing up the work of the groups, and he added that: "we need to produce a lot of information to make people
aware of their rights and the role they should play - that is clearly the first step". However, Sten also expressed that the exercise had obviously not been an easy task and that some of the work was therefore too overall: "We are good at describing the problems but we need to ask ourselves: what are the changes we want to see?", he said and added that: "We will insist on this in the coming partnership agreements".

Sten Andreasen was busy assisting in the process of good local governance Photo: Nynne Haugaard

Festive disco and bonfire

Friday evening contained snacks, bonfire and cozy talk outside, green disco light and music from the 80's inside, and a cosy late dinner. Many took advantage of the opportunity to party and judging from the round up snap-shot-show it was a very successful party, where the physical sides of intercultural co-orporation was expressed in hours of dancing. 

From PAB to PAC
On the last day of the annual meeting the Policy Advisory Board was renamed the more correct Policy Advisory Council and elections for the council were held. The participating DW's and partners were to elect two partner members and three DW members + two substituting DWs.  Five partner representatives and five DW's were running for election, and each candidate had two minutes to present his or her reasons for wanting to join the council. This limit on time was hard for some candidates to talk within while others managed to be both clear, short and precise. One Danish development worker, Sarah Isman, even made her presentation in nepali, a very impressive choice after only six months in the country. Whether or not this was the reason why Sarah received the second highest amount of votes is not to be said, but it surely showed her dedication. Among the rest of the DW candidates two received a matching amount of votes, which made reelection necessary.

The two female partner representatives running for elections were voted into the council by a great majority. A situation which was not foreseen but greatly welcomed. MS has a policy of reserving 50% of the seats in PAC for women. In this case it wasn't necessary.

This years annual meeting thus ended with the fulfilment of one of MS' declare goals: The equal participation of women. In addition, the meeting brought MS and its partners one step further in terms of a clear democracy focus.