• FACE-TO-FACE
Switzerland has been assisting Nepal's efforts to achieve overall development goals. Apart from providing support to infrastructure building such as trail and motorable bridges, Switzerland also supports safer migration, the transitional justice process as well as implementation of the constitution in Nepal. Social inclusion continues to be the core area of Swiss intervention in Nepal. A high-level delegation from Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, headed by its Director General Ambassador Patricia Danzi, paid an official visit to Nepal last week. Ram Kumar Kamat of The Himalayan Times caught up with Danzi to know her assessment of Swiss-Nepal cooperation and how Switzerland wants to further strengthen bilateral relations in the future. Excerpts:
What is the mission of your visit?
There are several objectives and one is that after 60 years of cooperation with Nepal we wanted to see how we managed to adapt and progress together in different areas that we touched upon and the second is linked to the first. We have just launched a new cooperation strategy of our partners in Nepal for the Nepali people and we have discussed how we can build on what we have done. For me it was important to see and talk to different people, authorities and communities, farmers, business people and beneficiaries. We cannot do this alone in our office. We have very dedicated staff in our office and I also wanted to thank everyone helping our efforts in Nepal especially for the work that they have done in the difficult period of the last two years.
What is the current status of cooperation between Switzerland and Nepal and how does the Swiss government want to carry out development cooperation in Nepal in the future?
I think we can describe our cooperation as mature and trustful. That means we can build on what we have done in the past. We can discuss issues with authorities very transparently and that is the basis for good cooperation. That fosters trust and we can discuss issues together. We have laid out in our future cooperation three areas that we have already worked on in the past to strengthen the federal system because Swiss people believe that accountability is the closest. Where things happen, accountability is the highest. We help implement the constitution and we have seen quite a lot of progress already. It takes time to implement all aspects of the constitution. In Switzerland, it was not in five years that we did these things. It takes decades to translate these things into action. Second, the administration and people have to adapt.
There is new way of working together and we are here to support this process further. The third element is economic development. Nepal is still a young country. I have learnt during my trip that 500,000 young people enter the local job market every year so it is already difficult to create employment for the ones that are here, let alone integrate all the new ones that follow. We have also built on what we have done before. To adapt the need that the private sector has, the reality that young people face, academic curriculum and practical work and vocational training aspects where government entities and private students come together has been very much appreciated because the skills that young people have, matched the market.
We also hope that this can attract further investment. When they invest in a country or region, they want to make sure that the labour force has the skills for the business to grow. I was very encouraged to see the information technology sector in the areas we visited. Language skills have to be improved in federal, provincial and local structures.
The business sector was very clear. They think it is very good idea to include the segments of young people who are excluded from training and it is better for those students who could not attend academic training to take part in vocational training and they have the chance to improve and be integrated into the market.
Nepal has so much to offer in terms of richness with which you attract tourists.
Tourists come to Nepal as the country offers beauty to tourists. You have a lot of migrant workers working abroad who provide good percentage of remittance. Now we have always been of the opinion that migration started not just 15 or 20 years ago. Human beings have migrated to all the different regions of the world throughout history.
What we would like to support is safer and dignified migration. If migrants suffer injuries and if they want to return, then they can do that safely. They should have proper documents. They need to be protected in the best possible manner. The choice to leave can be different. Often people don't choose to leave unless they encounter hardship. If this is the case then it is more important to ensure that migrants' departure and return are safe.
We have seen that migration also enriches a country. I was very impressed by ayoung farmer in Bhojpur who had returned from South Korea. I saw his farm plot. He used new technology to cultivate vegetables.
He cultivated bigger, juicier and better tomatoes. This was immediately copied by other farmers. The technology he brought was what he observed in South Korea. It was good. Their ambition was not only to grow vegetables locally, but to produce vegetables for bigger market. They wanted to be helped to produce bigger produce and organise local farmers. They also want to organise themselves in a different way so that they can have control over the price and plan better for investment.
For me it was an example of how migration enriches experience. Switzerland supports the agricultural value chain. Local cooperation empowered the farmers especially the ones that are disadvantaged. Women can also be part of the cooperatives. It is good for traders also. When they know the price of produce, they can plan better. The next step is the transition from individual farmers to cooperatives. We can see that they can contribute to the well-being of the family and their earning gives them status within the family. The next step we followed was the organisation of bigger market place - the commercialisation of goods developed further. These are the values that this kind of investment can bring. It organises things in a bigger scale and prices are very transparently put for everyone to see.
Over the 60 years that Switzerland has been cooperating with Nepal, I think one aspect that is very visible and that will stay in the minds of many Nepalis was trail bridges. That is very good for development because that facilitates flow of people, goods, and ideas. You allow government structures to go deeper. You allow education to be better. Many things are possible when there are links between communities and geographical regions. So, this was another aspect that we saw. Linking roads with highways help spur economic development. People benefit from trail bridges. Many people approach us for help. Now you need motor bridges because the goods that we transfer may be bigger.
We have ambitions to travel further and quicker. There is a good sign that development is going further. It's the people of Nepal that eventually decide the speed of development.
Switzerland is a very peace-loving country. Our constitution states that we support peace globally. And we are also supporting the peace process and transitional justice. It will take time. It is not something that can be done in one day or the next. The Nepali constitution has been promulgated and many things linked to transitional justice and the peace process have moved on.
The Swiss ambassador is here for the third time. So we have a very experienced leader of this embassy. Many times, during the trip in which she accompanied us, she compared what we had seen 10 years ago and how it actually evolved. It was very enriching to see changes taking place every day. She carries the Nepali Constitution in her purse wherever she goes.
You have visited some Swiss government funded project areas. What is your assessment of those projects?
One of the things the local people talked about was the issue of climate change and its impact on Nepal, people, water, agriculture, tourism, roads and everything. We want to integrate these aspects of climate change into the programming of what we do here. This was something new we heard during the trip.
You can see how slowly cooperation aspects moved into federal, provincial, and local structures so there is an interaction between the three tiers of government. We see that the more the local authorities become part of activities the local stakeholders design, there is more chance of cooperation programmes being successful.
What can Nepal learn from Swiss model of federalism, which is one of the oldest models so far?
First, it is not that one experience is better than the other. Learning is from both sides. Switzerland can learn a lot from Nepal as well because you managed to integrate change very quickly. I always say it takes time so don't be impatient when thing don't move the way you had imagined. You cannot jump three steps further, so time is needed. Empowerment of local actors is important.
When Switzerland went to negotiations with France and others in the beginning, the delegations were so big that parties did not trust each other. They thought that if a particular group goes for negotiation with neighbours, they won't represent me well. With time, these things improved so the trust building between different geographical and linguistic areas does not happen overnight. The democratic model has worked for Switzerland.
You can choose who is representing in the capital and you can also make the representatives accountable. What is mostly needed is the leadership and the will to progress. This can happen in any period of time. If people put the interests of their village and province before the personal interests, things can progress quickly.
In Nepal, some say federalism is an expensive political system and it is not suitable for a poor country like Nepal. How do you react to this?
Something does not have a price. That may be the short answer. It is also expensive to have a family. You prefer to have a family than to be alone. Something in the long- term is good, but in the short-term you have to pay more. When you look at what today brings you efficiency, you also have to look at where you want to be in the long-term. What is beneficial in the longterm is always important.
Post 2006 popular movement, Nepal has taken a number of stepsto transform itself into an inclusive state. The Swiss government also gives priority to building inclusive state structures in Nepal. Are you satisfied with the efforts aimed at transforming Nepal into an inclusive state?
It would be a bit contentious to say that I have seen all these processes. But I can see from what I saw that things are very encouraging. Maybe start with our own team and cooperation at the embassy, which is not only generally diverse, but also has regional and linguistic diversity. Things start from where you are. If you are not what you preach then that's not good. Switzerland is a diverse country. It is natural for Swiss people to talk about it and live it.
From the programmes I have seen I was encouraged. Many times, I heard that the poor communities were integrated. The private sector says it is very important that the work force should also come from disadvantaged communities. I did not expect private sector representatives to say that. Traders were happy that the prices were now equally fixed for everybody, not that the disadvantaged people got the lowest price. It was positive to hear that from a trader. If you can bring this inclusiveness to all the different sectors, then you have taken a big step forward.
The Swiss government gives priority to improve the rule of law and human rights situation. What is your assessment of the rule of law and human rights situation in Nepal?
We have not seen a lot of it directly, but I have talked to people in the transitional justice system. I have heard what we have done to strengthen the legal framework. The discussions that I had here in Kathmandu, gave me some indications of how it is done. The support we gave to Nepal during the constitution drafting process was important. The constitutional framework is good only if it is implemented.
What will be the new areas of Swiss cooperation?
Integration of climate aspect into our cooperation. We need to dive deeper and further and implement the things we design. My visit was also to launch the cooperation vision this time. The new aspect we want to incorporate in our cooperation is climate change. We have laid out a cooperation strategy 2023-26. We have our commitments in that document. My visit was also to launch this strategy.
A version of this article appears in the print on October 23, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.
