Background

The gross underdevelopment of large section of Nepali society is rooted to centralized political structured led by absolute monarch where mass poverty was prevailing, people didn’t have full right to govern themselves, few senior castes dominated the governance and large numbers of small cultures were constitutionally unrecognized. The previous constitutions systematically marginalized and didn’t incorporated the aspirations of the large numbers of identity groups namely, women, dalit, madhesi, janajati and others. This, along people's increasing political awareness and desire for prosperity, led to different movements, including the movement of 1990, decade long armed struggle by UNCP-Maoists and decisive 'historic April movement' in 2006, against the undemocratic governance. The monarch was thrown away and negotiated political process guided the country to the successful election for forming constitution assembly (CA) which would promulgate new democratic constitution of Nepal. 

This project is based on the historical fact that if the new constitution would not incorporate the aspirations and would not recognize diverse range of marginalized groups it would again lead the Nepali society to the new conflict and thus to chronic underdevelopment. The project will provide good platform for large numbers of identity groups who, still, don’t have explicit representation in CA to discuss over their demands, to provide a democratic shape to new constitution and to develop sense of ownership over it. Similarly, the several disputes between the parties on the issues of the model of federalism, system of governance, group rights and fundamental freedoms and issue of identity and recognition will be resolved through this project by bridging the gap between parties' dispute and real aspirations of people regarding those issues. 

Project Goal and Objectives

The overall goal of the project is to contribute to ensure that new constitution is inclusive and democratic, and is owned by Nepali people in general and the identity groups in particular.

The project aims to communicate with diverse ranges of stakeholders - organized, unorganized and newly emerged identity groups and particular disadvantaged groups of dalit, janajati, madhesi and women - in order to generate the opinion from them about how to make new constitution that properly address their needs, by organizing participatory forums at different levels. Similarly, the project will also disseminate the aspiration and opinions derived from those marginalized groups to the policy makers and senior political leaders.

The Target Groups and Stakeholders

The project is targeted, in general, to the entire Nepali citizen. However, there are varieties of categories like small political parties who have not or very less share in CA,  small organized ethnic entities and identity groups, and organized or unorganized groups for other than political purpose like mother's group, farmer's groups etc. The above mentioned category incorporates the thematic groups such as poor, women, dalit, janajati and madhesi as well. Media organizations also take vital stake of this project.

The project covers the geographical locations majorly current regional centers, remote county sides and Kathmandu. Indeed, the project will also cover the new provincial centers proposed by State Restructuring Committee of CA. 

Planned Project Activities

The following are the activities which are planned to be carried out:Organizing six events of one-day seminar including policy makers, members of CA and senior political leaders in Kathmandu.

Organizing four residential seminars in different four regional headquarters with different target groups mentioned above.

Organizing thirty two events of interaction, informal dialogues and discussion programs in proposed provincial centers. 

Lobbying with senior politician, policy makers and subject matter experts on the various issues assembled from interaction with different marginalized groups from regional and provincial level.

Parallel incorporation of mass media to disseminate the contents and synthesis of seminar and interaction events from local to national level.

Following are the major contents of seminar and events which will be same for local and national level.

Importance of constitution and constitution assembly (CA) and highlights of major contents of the unified draft report prepared by the Constitutional Committee of CA

Identification of contentious issues in and discussion on draft version of new constitution

Relevant contents will be developed as per the need of participant further

Expected Outcomes

At the end of the project, large number of underprivileged groups will have been made aware about how their concerns are incorporated or not in the new constitution. Disadvantaged and marginalized identity groups will have developed sense of ownership toward the new constitution which is a long term impact of this project. Similarly, significant numbers of constitution makers, experts and political leaders will have been made aware about the concerns of relegated communities that to be reflected in new constitution.

Impact Assessment Indicators

• Numbers of target groups' issues addressed in the draft constitution as well as in promulgated.

• Satisfaction level of target groups over promulgated constitution 

• Enhanced political environment for consensus building

Public Consultancy

APDN has successfully completed 6 months long constitution making support program support program entitled “Incorporating Peoples’ Aspiration in the New Constitution” in partnership with National Peace Campaign (NPC) funded by Misereor, Germany.  In this program, APDN launched series of community interactions with marginalized and disadvantaged groups of people in countryside. Objective of this program was to collect people’s aspirations to be incorporated in the new constitution. Series of seminar, workshop and discussion events were organized throughout the remote parts of country. Marginalized and disadvantaged groups such as women, dalit, ethnic minorities, madhesi and others were actively involved and provided opportunity to mention their need and aspirations that should be properly incorporated in new constitution. 

Lobby Events with Politicians and Experts

In the course of this program, APDN did extensive interactions with numbers of policy makers, subject matter experts, senior and younger politicians so that people’s aspirations could be incorporated in the new constitution. APDN organized different interaction events with the concerned policymakers and flashed the issues of marginalized communities which should be addressed by new constitution. The lobby events made politicians aware on needs of public regarding structure of federal republic, fundamental rights, and special remedies for disadvantaged groups. In addition, APDN collected many inputs and suggestions from politicians and subject matter experts on further projects to be developed that could be more realistic for country’s peace and democracy building process.

Public Auditing

APDN has been launching a series of seminars and workshops in order to verify whether draft constitution and different thematic reports incorporated people's aspirations or not. Through the method of public auditing series of seminars were launched in all regional centers of the country. Representatives of diverse communities were involved in these seminars to discuss over the contents of thematic reports and to verify if there issues were properly addressed. APDN has successfully launched 3 regional seminars in Biratnagar, Dhulikhel and Chitwan, so far. See Details in Publications.