With the final draft of the national volunteering policy being finalised, the country has a unique opportunity to elevate volunteerism to the next level, leveraging it to fully achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.Schools must play their role in enabling "engaged" critical thinking, facilitating hypothetical case study discussions that can generate the interest of students. The ultimate goal is to create, among the youth, a sense of ownership and attachment to the way local affairs and public policies are formulated, inspiring them to be part of such processes
Often taken for granted, volunteerism instead is the next big thing that policy makers should embrace as an innovative and complementary tool to bring about social change around Nepal.
Considering the immense efforts the nation is putting on building an inclusive and federalised nation, it is particularly fascinating to imagine how civic engagement, the passion that fuels citizens' involvement in public affairs through volunteering efforts, can truly help better forms of governments, ones based on collaborations between state and non-state actors and individual citizens as well.
In a sense, we are talking about a bottom up approach to inclusive societies, where exists a real inspiration, almost an eagerness from below, to build better communities. It's, therefore, interesting that Antonio Guterres, the Secretary General of the United Nations, is spending considerable political capital on the idea of creating a new social contract, a re-setting of the existing relationships between the citizenry and the state.
Now it is up to the people to try to concretise such an idealistic, perhaps even idyllic, vision in ideas that eventually could be turned into a concrete set of policies that will be localised during implementation.
Discussions are underway, and opportunities for citizens from around the world to participate in the discussions are also opening up.
For example, the UNDP Human Development Report Office and United Nations Volunteers are organising an online workshop on March 23, entitled "21st Century Reset: Human Development, Volunteering and the New Social Contract", focussed on charting a bold new path to development, which requires a reset in our ways of working and collaborating. In short, this is the idea behind the new social contract, a new model of governance that could be adapted by east and west, south and north of the world, by every nation committed to a new form of people-centered governance.
Yet, concretely speaking, what would such a scenario look like for an emerging nation like Nepal? Volunteerism can be really big in this "imagination process" with millions of citizens across the country engaged in structured and impactful service experiences. But there are many other ways, all leading to better forms of people's engagement.
Let's start with learning.
As producers of public "good", schools, both community-run and private, have an important role to shape a new concept of citizenship among the youth, enabling curiosity, an important element for personal leadership, about how local affairs that directly affect their lives are currently run and how such affairs could be better run. For example, we could have a young 11 grade female student imagining how things would turn out if effective governance is not in place.
"If the local health post is understaffed and under resourced or if the local public hospital is not offering the services promised, my own future might be adversely affected because, if I or any member of my family gets sick, we could easily get into a spiral of endless debt, and I would not be able to pursue higher education.
The practical consequences? Me married too early or me ending up working as an "entertainer" to pay off the debts".
Such discussions should enable the youth into thinking that effective, transparent governance is not an abstract, but essential, thing that determines their future lives' trajectories.
Schools must play their role in enabling "engaged" critical thinking, facilitating hypothetical case study discussions that can generate the interest of students.
The ultimate goal is to create, among the youth, a sense of ownership and attachment to the way local affairs and public policies are formulated, inspiring them to be part of such processes.
Moving ahead with other practical ways to see this new social contract take off the ground might involve elected officials and civil service officers genuinely interested in reaching out to the people in getting their opinions, ideas and feedback.
This could be done by taking advantage of the existing traditions, through which locals channel their grievances at mass meetings.
For example, the idea of more participatory budget could be based on existing models of informal consultations through a more deliberate, re-purposed and targeted approach to engage locals in the decision-making process.
Obviously, a public consent approach aspiring towards unanimity won't always be possible, but at the same time public consultations should not just be tokenistic tools that are not genuinely embraced by politicians and citizens alike.
Civic education could also help people better understand how existing local government's decision-making functions and involve the exploration of new venues that allow more people's participation.
Such new practices do not need to be immediately codified by the law, but instead the elements of the new social contract that is being shaped up could be organically experimented on a trial basis. Certainly, new technologies with their huge potential should be part of the conversation as well.
At the end, we should heed the words shared by Guterres on the occasion of the 18th Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture in 2020."A New Social Contract within societies will enable young people to live in dignity; will ensure women have the same prospects and opportunities as men; and will protect the sick, the vulnerable, and minorities of all kinds."
Galimberti is the co-founder of ENGAGE, an NGO partnering with youths living with disabilities
A version of this article appears in the print on March 23, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.
