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Nepal is famous not only as the Himalayan Shangri-La but also as a country with distinct tangible and intangible heritages. Within a relatively small terrain, Nepali communities have preserved these heritages for centuries despite adversities. 

For example, the Damai community has been preserving its musical heritage for ages—without getting the respect it deserves.

Historians believe that the word ‘Damai’ comes from the musical instrument called ‘Damaha’ (a large drum). This musical instrument is made using refined leather and molded by a copper or brass strip into an oval shape. Music is produced through this instrument by beating on its either side with a pair of sticks called gaja. The primary role of a Damai is to play Damaha and other musical instruments like the Sanai for the society on social occasions like weddings.  

In many remote villages of Nepal, people from this community have been performing for the society at homes and temples for extremely low returns, for ages.

Anthropologist Carol Tingey says, “The Damais occupy a unique place within this immense cultural diversity. They are thought to be an auspicious caste in Nepal who are professional musicians while their supplementary caste occupation is tailoring.” 

The cateist mentality prevalent in the society has sidelined this important role of the community, raising a wall between the ‘Dalits’ and ‘non-Dalits’ by undermining their devotion, emotion and contributions and their musical heritage.

This, despite the fact that the Damai musical heritage constitutes the very soul of the Khas culture in Nepal where Damai Baja (musical instruments) are compulsory in every cultural and religious rite or ritual of the Khas community. So much so that puja (obeisance) offered to divinities at their abodes is considered incomplete and in vain without their music.

On different sociocultural and religious occasions, the traditional musicians from this community play three different types of music—the Mangal Dhun, Ramkali Dhun and Malshree Dhun. Their music forms an inalienable part of marriage, Vratavandha (sacred thread ceremony) and other sacred rituals. In Karnali and Far-West regions, their music is essential for invoking Devata (the deities) in fairs, something that points toward the richness, beauty and importance of Damai music in our society.

Delving into their musical heritage, Panche Baja and Naumati Baja—two sets of musical instruments, comprising five and nine instruments—come to mind. Panche Baja consists of Damaha, Tyamko, Jhyali, Sanai and Dholaki whereas Naumati Baja is an ensemble of Panche Baja along with Karnaal/Narsinga and a pair of Damaha and Sanai. According to scholar Ramsaran Darnal, “Panche Baja used to be taken as a symbol of luck and fortune before the Vedic era. In Nepal’s temples, Nagara and other musical components of Panche Baja are played during puja. Due to this religious aspect, the Panche Baja is known as Dev Baja (God’s Band)”.

But the ‘caste system’ has ruined the divinity of this musical heritage, including Panche Baja and Naumati Baja, and its importance in society. Foreign scholars have done their PhD in Damaha, Panche Baja and Naumati Baja while we the Nepalis have failed to study our own musical heritage and realize its importance, thanks to this evil system.

Music is a boon for the whole of humanity, it is something that transcends religions, languages and territories. But in our society, music also signifies a particular community. For instance, we take the Dhime Baja as a heritage of the Newars, associate Dhamphu-Tunguna with the Tamangs and Damaha-Sanai with the Damais. Our ethnocentric thoughts contradict with universal values of music, making us incapable of embracing all these heritages as Nepali music and prompting coming generations to disrespect this heritage of ours. For instance, we do not see parents buying a Damaha for their children nor do we see a child playing the Sanai. Thanks to our mindset, youngsters are playing Western musical instruments like the guitar, drum set and the piano instead of native musical instruments.

Music has that healing effect: it gives humanity immense pleasure, helping it forget pain and sorrow. But for musicians from Dalit communities like Damai and Gandharva, music ends up inflicting torture to a people as it comes with a ‘tag’ and a stereotyped identity. In many villages, Damai musicians have to sit at the corner of the host’s house as the ‘tradition’ forbids them from going inside and eating with others. Even the so-called ‘high-caste’ people dance to the tune of Damai musicians, but they do not bother to show respect to the latter. All that these gifted musicians get as rewards are life-long wounds, disrespect, discrimination and disgust.

Our musical heritage particularly carries casteist flavor and vibes. The so-called non-Dalits give the tags of ‘touchable’ and ‘untouchable’ on the basis of music people play. The Damai and the Gandarva communities of our country are classed among the ‘untouchables’. The sole reason is the profession they hold—the musical instruments they play. Though the scenario has slightly changed, the casteist mentality has not changed much. 

For public consumption, people say, “We all are equal; there is no discrimination at all.” 

But the truth is different. News reports on caste-based discrimination and its consequences feature almost on a daily basis. 

Murder, physical torture, social boycott, segregation, extortion and other forms of punishment against the Dalits are going on unchecked even in an era where an increasing number of Nepali people are getting academic degrees from prestigious universities like the Oxford and TU. 

National development becomes possible with factors like cooperation, equality and social emancipation even when there’s a lack of cultural and natural resources.

Though the Constitution of Nepal has provisions against caste-based discrimination, the old, stereotyped caste system still prevails, ruining Nepal’s cultural and musical heritage, and destroying the beauty of our ethnic diversity. If we do not take caste-based discrimination seriously, this evil will fragment our society into various pieces like in Rwanda.

Colm Toibin, one of my favorite writers, called ‘Small Things Like These’ by Claire Keegan the best novel he read in the year it was published. The book was shortlisted for the booker prize in 2022. Oprah Winfrey chose it for her book club in 2024. The book is short, at just a little over a hundred pages, but packs a punch. Even Oprah, in one of the videos on the book club’s Instagram page, says you’ll be thinking about it long after you’ve turned the final page.

The book is dedicated to the women and children forced to work at the Magdalene Laundries in Ireland. Built to house women who had ‘fallen from grace’ but promoted cheap labor, Magdalene Laundries were stricter than prisons. Women had to work without pay and were only provided a meager meal at best. Their living conditions were horrifying, with many being forced to eat off the floor or sleep in dank places. In Ireland, the last Magdalene Laundry ceased operating only in 1996.

Set in Ireland in 1985, Small Things Like These follows Bill Furlong, a coal and timber delivery man, as he makes a shocking discovery that will change the course of his life. He’s living a content life with his wife and daughters when he stumbles upon something that involves the church. Bill doesn’t know how to deal with it and despite his wife’s insistence that he look the other way, he can’t help but get involved in it. The book is alternately slow and fast. What I mean by that is there’s a leisurely pace to life in the book but things unravel quickly once Bill discovers the town’s well-kept secret. 

Bill’s life hasn’t been easy. He doesn’t know who his father is and his mother dies when he’s just a child. But all his life he has been shown kindness by strangers who took him in and nurtured him. In a way, he’s come to associate love with kindness. Isn’t what you know of love and how you perceive love shaped by how you were loved while growing up? Bill has received kindness and it’s the only way he knows how to be. This dictates his actions and he can’t turn away when he feels someone needs his help. This might mean giving beggars all the change in his pockets or rescuing someone in trouble.

Despite the brevity, you feel like you really get to know the characters. I can’t fathom how Keegan has been able to achieve that but you come to care about the people in the story. Perhaps that is because Keegan taps into their vulnerabilities and shows you it’s possible to maintain grace under pressure. Bill is a man with a clear conscience and he does his best to live by certain principles. He’s a good husband and a caring father. When things go wrong, he doesn’t buckle. His goodness forces him to stand his ground and do what he thinks is right despite knowing it might be a hard battle. 

I read Small Things Like These in under two hours. It was so engrossing that I wasn’t able to put it down. It’s sad, horrifying, and strangely uplifting at the same time. It shows you what humans are capable of and that cruelty and kindness co-exist in the world and that it’s never one or the other but a mix of both. This is a book you’ll want to buy a few copies of, one to keep and the others to give to family and friends.

About the author

Claire Keegan is an Irish author who is known for her short stories and novellas. Her stories have been published in The New Yorker, Granta, and The Paris Review among others. Two of her novellas have been made into movies. Small Things Like These has been adapted into a film starring Cilian Murphy and Emily Watson. She has received several awards including The Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, The Martin Healy Prize, and The Olive Cook award.

Fiction

Small Things Like These

Claire Keegan

Published: 2021

Publisher: Faber & Faber

Pages: 110, Paperback

Five ordinances recently got the presidential stamp of approval, giving the ruling coalition some relief at a time when it has been delaying the winter session of the Parliament for quite some time for reasons best known to it.

The five instruments that got the final seal are the Ordinance to Amend Some Nepal Acts related to Promoting Good Governance and Public Service Delivery (2025); the Economic Procedure and Financial Accountability (First Amendment) Ordinance (2025); the Privatization (First Amendment) Ordinance (2025); and the Ordinance to Amend Some Nepal Acts Related to Improving the Economic and Business Environment and Enhancing Investment (2025) and the Ordinance to Amend the Land Act-1964, the Forest Act-2019 and the National Park Act (1973).

Per reports, the President had some reservations vis-a-vis the last ordinance, but they got sorted out, ultimately.     

While the government cites several bills stuck in various parliamentary committees as the reason behind the delay in summoning the session, six opposition parties, including the main opposition—the CPN (Maoist Center)—see a sinister design.

The opposition parties fear that the government is trying to rule through ordinances by avoiding parliamentary scrutiny of its performance.

At a meeting of the opposition parties held at the Center’s parliamentary party office on Wednesday, the opposition camp came down heavily on the government, accusing it of bypassing democratic norms and demanding commencement of the session at the earliest.

On more occasions than one, this daily has stood for parliamentary scrutiny of government moves and against a rule through ordinances. A rule by ordinances undermines the very spirit of a democratic polity worth its name as it gives the already powerful executive more powers to ride roughshod over civil liberties and other cherished democratic values. The ‘Ordinance Raaj’ should be an exception, not the norm. As things stand, there’s no reason why the government should resort to ordinances to run the affairs of the state. 

So, the government should do a course correction, request the President to call the winter session without further delays and stand ready to face parliamentary scrutiny by keeping in mind that delays in convening the session will end up emboldening elements bent on discrediting this polity. 

Devendra Gautam and Ramkala Khadka of Annapurna Media Network caught up with Katie Donohoe, mission director at the USAID in Nepal, to discuss different facets of the agency’s 63-year-long partnership in Nepal and plans for the future. Excerpts from the interview:

First of all, what inspired you to this journey, this career path?

I think there are two ways to answer that question: my work at USAID, and what inspired me to come to Nepal. I’ve always been interested in seeing the world. And I’ve always been interested in working with others and serving others. USAID allows me to do both. I get to work in partnership with people around the world to help them in different areas and provide assistance on behalf of the US government. And then I get to see the world. I actually started as a Peace Corps volunteer, as a teacher in Madagascar a long time ago. And that really made me want to keep doing this type of work. I’ve also worked in Zambia, Pakistan, Egypt, Nigeria, and now here in Nepal. And what brought me to Nepal is when I was thinking about my next assignment, I was really interested in working in a country with an amazing cultural diversity, a country that’s really changing quickly. So I’m fond of saying Nepal is changing, and USAID needs to change with it.

We’re really thinking about how we work and listen to Nepalis to tailor our portfolio along that development journey. And that’s what brought me here. I’ve been doing this work for about 20 years, and I think it’s shaping up to be my favorite job. 

And how has your experience been so far here in Nepal? 

Wonderful, really great. I had never been to Nepal before. I had certainly read about it and heard about it, but in Nepal, we’ve just been so warmly welcomed. I’m here with my family. I have lots of khadas everywhere in my house.

I’ve gotten to travel in Nepal. I’ve been to Janakpur and Sudurpaschim, Karnali, Pokhara, and then of course around Kathmandu. And it’s just been really a warm welcome, and as fascinating as I thought it would be.

The USAID has been in Nepal for the last seven decades or so?

Sixty-three years. 

What is the guiding philosophy driving the agency in Nepal?

Sure, that’s a great question. Our guiding philosophy is partnership, working together, listening to Nepalis, to determine the needs of the people, and then how we can bring our resources and other expertise to walk along that journey together. So in these 63 years, USAID has had some really remarkable accomplishments in Nepal with Nepali people. We helped pave the first roads here. We helped fund the first telephone exchange. We helped eradicate malaria.

I’m really proud, particularly of our work with women and children. Child mortality in Nepal has gone down 60 percent over the course of two decades. And that’s really remarkable. And we’re lucky to be on that journey.

To go back to your original question, I think those are the guiding principles of partnership. And then we really are focusing on thinking about federalism and how to implement federalism and implement the Nepali constitution by making sure, as Nepal develops, that everyone is included in that journey.

And then resilience. Of course, Nepal is, as we just felt recently, subject to shocks, different environmental shocks. So we do a lot of work thinking about resilience and how to help prepare Nepali people for those shocks so that, hopefully, everyone’s prepared for the next challenge.

What are the main strategic priorities of USAID missions in Nepal over the next few years, and how does it ensure that its projects align with Nepal’s national priorities, Nepal’s government’s priorities.

That’s where we start from: the priorities of the government of Nepal. We don’t ever want to do anything that doesn’t align with the needs of Nepal. So I mentioned those three overarching priorities, which are federalism, inclusion and resilience. And then we also think about working in different areas. So we work in education, which means helping teachers and children. We work in health, which is largely focused on mothers and children. We work on economic growth, which is a lot working with farmers and agriculture, but also working with small entrepreneurs. I’ve met some really great Nepali entrepreneurs. And then also thinking about democratic governance. We support the policymakers at every level of the Nepali government to implement democracy here in Nepal.

One of the foremost challenges for Nepal is dealing with disasters. Recently a quake epicentered in Tibet shook parts of Nepal (eastern Nepal) that showed how ill-prepared we are when it comes to dealing with disasters. This quake comes barely a year after the Jajarkot quake that left behind a trail of death, devastation and displacement. How is the USAID helping Nepal strengthen the institutional capacity in dealing with such disasters?

Sure. There are two ways we’re doing that. One is we’re working with the national institutions that think about disaster risk reduction, doing capacity building, planning to help everyone be prepared. And then we’re also working at the provincial and municipal level.

So for example, when I went to Sudurpaschim, we met with the municipal government and we saw their storeroom of emergency supplies. We have been supporting them to develop a plan to respond to disasters. So we think a lot about preparedness and helping people manage and be ready for a disaster when it strikes. And then of course there are earthquakes and landslides here, so we also have a humanitarian assistance program and a relief and recovery program. For example, in Jajarkot we’re helping build temporary learning centers. We just announced an assistance program of five million dollars that will build classrooms so that children can get back in school. This is an important part of our portfolio because it’s important to the government of Nepal and important to us as well.

As you said, USAID has been serving Nepal for 63 years. How does it measure the impact of its program in Nepal? Are there any notable success stories that you can share?

Monitoring data and accountability are really important to us. We want to make good investments that serve the people of Nepal. So I mentioned a few of the successes earlier but I’ll go back. One is the reduction in child mortality, which has gone down by 60 percent. So that’s a statistic that we track really closely.

Also a huge reduction in malaria. Those are really important. We also think about the number of people we serve. In 2023 alone, we served one million Nepali women, which is a number I love. So we’ve touched them in one way or another because they’re entrepreneurs, because they went to a health clinic that we serve, because they’re teachers and they received support in another way, because they’re community leaders or mayors or deputy mayors and received training or journalists of course, so that’s it. So we look, we try and really think about this data and gather data and that helps us understand what we’ve achieved and how else we can, what else we can achieve.

What also comes to mind is the USAID motto: From the American people. What percentage of USAID assistance, which is the taxpayers’ money, is going to the grassroots? There is this complaint that most of the international development assistance in Nepal actually goes down to paying the consultants, politically influential people and the intermediaries…..

Sure, that’s a great question. I’ll answer it in two ways. First, one of the other reasons I wanted to come to Nepal is that we’re really thinking about locally-led development here. I would say USAID Nepal is really on the cutting edge of getting funding directly to the grassroots, directly to people. So here, we fund Nepali organizations directly. These are civil society and other organizations that are serving Nepalis.

And that funding isn’t going through consultants or international NGOs. It’s going to Nepalis.

The second thing we do that I think is a sign of the deep and long partnership we have with the government of Nepal. In addition to working with CSOs, we fund the government of Nepal directly, which we don’t do in many countries, but we can do it here because we have such trust and accountability.

For example, we fund the Ministry of Health directly, we fund the Ministry of Education directly, and then that money is going straight to schools. That’s how we’re doing things, but then we also go out and visit communities.

Like when I’m in Sudurpaschim, I ask them: What money did you receive? How did you receive it and how did it work? So me and all of my colleagues are constantly doing monitoring.

And then the last thing I would say and it’s really important: We mostly hire and work with Nepali people.

At USAID, most of my staff, most of my colleagues are Nepali people. Most of the development organizations that we work with have entirely Nepali staff. So it’s touching people in that way. The second part of your question is kind of getting at accountability, right? We do a lot of auditing. We actually work with the Auditor General of Nepal, where we do a lot of independent auditing and monitoring, I feel really confident in the systems that we have and that’s what allows us to work so broadly in Nepal because we track really closely our financial systems, our data, we’re always asking for more information and that allows us to work here with confidence.

So how do you ensure that your programs are sustainable and continue to benefit local communities after the funding is stopped?

These are the questions I ask the team. So the first thing is we have to start by listening to Nepalis. And so if we design a program that, you know, I made up in my head in my office, it’s not going to be sustainable because it won’t meet the needs of the people. So we start with the design, and that helps it become more sustainable.

The second thing is it’s not always our funding. So we ask for cost sharing. We say, especially with the private sector or with the government in Nepal, we’ll put in 80 percent, you put in 20 percent. That makes it sustainable over time.

And then good programs last. Recently, I went to Janakpur and saw a program in a municipality that was providing small, small grants to local families, largely Muslim families. And the government, the municipality had used their own budget to continue that program after our funding ended using the capacity developed together to follow up with the families and monitor and provide different inputs.

So the program continued after we left. That’s the way we think about sustainability. But you have to think about it from the beginning or else the program ends, and you think, oh no, this is going to go away when we go away.

You were with the National War College, right?

I was.

How can you help this ill-prepared country fight multiple challenges like poverty, climate change, the shocks associated with climate change, and things like that with your war college background?

That’s an interesting question. So I actually was at the National War College.

I had a Nepali colleague when I was there. There are a number of senior Nepali military officers who studied at the National War College. That really helped me think about strategic development and strategic thinking and that was a lot of what I got out of that year. And so  the biggest lesson I learned there is to remind myself that you need a broad coalition of people to work with you across the governments of Nepal, the people of Nepal to make sure that your work is effective and strategic. As you said, we are investing taxpayer dollars from the American people and so we want to make sure it’s what Nepal wants and that it’s a strategic investment as we move forward and as Nepal develops.

Safa Tempo, Nepal’s first ever electric vehicle, was launched in Nepal with US assistance as part of efforts toward reducing Nepal’s reliance on gas-guzzling vehicles. Import of petroleum products is one of the major factors behind Nepal’s yawning trade deficit as it escalates the cost of running the economy. Is the US government working with Nepal to decrease reliance on diesel and petrol so that the national economy becomes profitable and sustainable in the long run?

We are working with Nepal for sustainable, broad-based economic growth. This includes economic electric vehicles and what we call the business-enabling environment.  

What are the policies that need to be in place so that Nepal develops? 

Nepal’s development has really improved over time in terms of human capital and social indicators vis-a-vis education and health, but the country still needs more economic growth so that people’s incomes rise and the growth becomes sustainable in the long term. We want that growth to be green for environmental reasons. Of course, clean energy is one area that we think about, we look at small entrepreneurs and other things. We’ve done a lot of work on energy, in electric vehicles also, but more in energy transmission. For the first time, Nepal is now a net exporter of energy to India. With USAID’s help, Nepal has completed a great deal of  regulatory work in the field of hydropower that has enabled it to export clean renewable energy to its neighbors. 

Through our partners at USAID Urja Nepal, we are working to develop a clean electricity market in Nepal by enabling households to use clean electricity instead of wood for cooking, working with the government on policies that make it easier for families to choose electric vehicles and helping the private sector clean energy producers sell energy to the Nepal Electricity Authority.

With our partners USAID Urja Nepal we established 23 electric vehicle fast charging stations.

There probably was one study, among several other similar studies, that found the consumption of a unit of green energy brings a return of 86 cents to a national economy. But here we are, exporting the green energy at dirt-cheap rates. Does the US have plans to increase Nepal’s capacity to utilize the domestically-generated green energy to the maximum possible extent instead of exporting it at cheap rates so that the economy becomes profitable and sustainable in the long run?

I cannot talk about the rates but would love to view the study. Going back to the beginning, we want to support Nepal in areas that Nepal and the Nepalis want to develop.

We help train Nepal government officials regarding green energy and other forms of energy. We are ready to help Nepal with policymaking and capacity-building. We are ready to help multilateral, bilateral exchanges that need to happen by working with our colleagues in India. Nepal can ask for help with regard to regulatory changes vis-a-vis the energy exchange.

Do you have any specific programs to support local governance and decentralization?

We have a few and the one I would point to is called public financial management. This program is really helping municipal government officials have a budget, a transparent budget. Using that tool, they (local governments) manage the budget they get from the federal government through the public sector in a transparent manner, making sure that it gets straight to the Nepali people. We also have programs that look at trafficking in persons and help the government of Nepal to stop it,  make sure that communities are prepared to help survivors and become more resilient against trafficking. We also think about civil society and media where we do some training of journalists and civil society to help them produce stories in this space. So in all of our work, but particularly in democracy and governance, we try and think about all the different players in this space: the government, NGOs, the media, all the things that you need to be vibrant in a healthy democracy. 

​​​​​​The first Agricultural University in Nepal was probably established with US assistance. But these days the entire corn belt of Nepal is going to the dogs, going to the monkeys rather. Any plan to revive Nepal’s farming sector?

Agriculture is, as you’ve noted, an area of our longstanding interest and expertise. We have a number of large agriculture programs, and then also ones that support specific, small entrepreneurs. We think about agriculture inputs, we think about fertilizer, we think about how to have people work the land and understand the land they’re on. For example, we funded something called the soil map, so people know what kind of soil they’re working on, which is the first of its kind, and I had certainly never seen one. We are thinking a lot about how to make individual farmers more productive, how to make this system work together, about regulations you need for import and export. And then there’s some individual businesses that we support, we support a poultry farm, for example, to help them market. We support tea so we can help market Nepali tea. So it’s not just going to Darjeeling, but it’s coming out of Nepal.

USAID focuses efforts into keeping agriculture money here in Nepal by helping to set up processing facilities for raw products. In November we launched a spice processing facility that will employ 55 people and produce more than 30 spice products, increasing their value over just exporting raw spices to be processed elsewhere.

So we think a lot about agriculture. There’s a lot of potential there for economic growth in Nepal.      

Something about Feed the Future. Can you just enlighten us about it?

That was all Feed the Future, I should have said that at the beginning. All of our agriculture programs are under what we call Feed the Future. And that’s exactly the idea. I’ve always liked the name of that program, that we need to improve agriculture to feed the future. And that’s literally feeding, well, sort of literally in terms of food growth, but also it’s a huge driver of economic growth. And Nepal does need to start exporting, of course, in agriculture, not just moving from subsistence agriculture, but in terms of more sales, because that will help with economic growth. A lot of potential there.

​​​​​Adding to this question, how do you see it integrate with food security in Nepal?

We think about it in everything we do, one making sure that we’re being inclusive. So we’re thinking through all the different groups of farmers. Of course, there’s a lot of women farmers, people that are marginalized. So thinking through food security, thinking through seasonal means and different agricultural inputs, and that is, I would say, at the base of what we do. And then beyond that, thinking about how food can be taken to market and sold. Of course, that’s a different type of security, but it provides income and then it is ultimately exported.

Does this program also involve preservation of indigenous crops? A lot of indigenous crops are disappearing due to climate change and that’s a huge loss to entire humanity…..

I know that we work to preserve crops that are native to Nepal, and we work really hard to make sure we’re inclusive and working with indigenous groups, working with women, working with marginalized communities. As part of that work, we would work with indigenous crops. I don’t know that we have specific programs focusing on indigenous crops, but we make sure that we’re being inclusive of everyone in all of our programming. That’s really a central tenet of the work that we do.

As part of that effort, the US Embassy organized an “Indigenous Women Leaders in Climate” panel discussion at the embassy in August 2024.

The event brought together women leaders from various organizations to share their expertise and experiences in promoting indigenous-led research and education.

The panel discussion focused on how climate change affects vulnerable communities, leading to significant consequences like migration and the emergence of ghost towns. They also discussed how intergenerational knowledge plays a crucial role in adapting to these changes and preserving cultural heritage.

Before I arrived, in September 2023, Kyle Whyte, a US Science Envoy and one of America’s foremost experts on indigenous knowledge and climate justice visited Nepal. He led the International Conference and Workshop on Indigenous-Led Research and Education in Nepal with the focus of promoting discourse and understanding of indigenous-led research and education and its important role in conservation and strengthening climate resilience. So the US Government is doing a lot across the board to promote inclusivity on multiple fronts.

How can the US help Nepal, a country with minimal carbon footprint, cope with shocks associated with climate change? 

So there are a few things to think about on this front.  One is, you know, disaster reduction and risk management. So thinking through if there are shocks, how do we manage them? Another thing is, when we’re thinking about agricultural inputs, everything that we do, we want it to be as climate resistant as possible, so you’re not focusing just on one crop and then having other negative impacts. Those are the two big ways, and then helping people prepare individually for climate shocks and prepare for disaster. You know, any disasters that may come.

What are the initiatives that you are taking for the economic empowerment of youth, women and marginalized groups, especially in rural areas? 

The first thing we do is make sure that those groups are included. You could go to an area and just talk to the kind of leaders of an area, or the elite folks, and leave behind the youth and the women in the marginalized group. So we start from the beginning by making sure they’re included in any programming. If we look at the data, we see where poverty rates are highest, where literacy rates are highest, where you have lower economic growth, where you have kids who are out of school, where you have higher mortality rates, and those tend to also be marginalized groups, and so working, working with them. And so it’s a program of inclusion, always and always, making sure we’re talking to, listening to everyone while designing programs. 

Do you have some specific training and job opportunities for those groups?

We tend to try and offer our training opportunities to everyone, including kids at risk. And maybe a good example is a great adolescent and reproductive health program that focuses on young women who are at risk of dropping out of school and marrying early. We have specific training to get them back to school in a safe environment and then support them in other ways. We also have a program to try and help people understand the benefits of delaying marriage. The program is targeted at girls, particularly those at risk of marrying early or dropping out of school early. So it’s dependent on the needs of the community and each area in which we’re working.

What specific intervention has the US yet implemented to accomplish educational goals in Nepal, including access to quality education?

I love that question, because I used to be a teacher.

I was a teacher when I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Madagascar. Girls’ access to education is so important for them, but also for equality and for the future of Nepal. So let me mention a few. One is this. You know, when girls reach puberty, sometimes they tend to drop out of school, so figuring out ways in which they can come back to school. So we’ve set up these separate classrooms within schools to help them come back. So if they are behind a bit, they need to catch up. They can. They can work in those classrooms. Another one is reducing child and early marriage, which, of course, has a tendency to bring girls out of school. And then we have a whole program focused on equity and inclusion, equity and inclusion that specifically looks at the municipal level and how we can make sure that kids are in school. Some of that is making sure that schools have resources, so that we give block grants to the districts and the schools to make sure that there’s enough space, because sometimes kids don’t go to school because there are no books at school, or there are no teachers. So thinking through that, and then a lot of community level work with parents and teachers to make sure that kids are coming to school. Nepal has a pretty high enrollment rate. Lots of kids go to school, but learning outcomes need to catch up. We don’t want just kids in school, we want them to be learning.

Do you see any possibility of tectonic shifts in policies once a new administration takes over in the United States?

We’re in the last weeks of our current administration. There have been 12 presidential administrations since USAID was formed in 1961 and this will be my fifth transition working at USAID. It’s really a hallmark of American democracy, this peaceful transition of power…. I think new administrations always have new policy priorities, but at its core, the work of USAID has stayed the same over these past 12 administrations, and so I think that core will stay the same, and I’m sure there will be different priorities, and we’ll work with the new administration, with the government of Nepal and the Nepali people to figure out how those best align here.