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Disability is back on the global development agenda. Hope­fully, rights of people with disabilities will now enter national development plans of developing and emerging countries. This hope stems from a major ini­tiative being undertaken by the Brit­ish Government through its over­seas aid agency, the Government of Kenya and the International Dis­ability Alliance. Disability activists around the world are set to gather in London on July 24 for the Global Disability Summit.

Disability has unfortunately never been the main focus in the overall developmental agenda. Even though experts acknowledge it as import­ant, it has always been considered an “add on”, secondary or in worst cases, not given any attention.

The Summit, with a Civil Society Forum taking place a day earlier, is an opportunity to reset the global development agenda, so that rights of people with disabilities are given priority in the sustainable develop­ment agenda. It will be cohosted by an interesting triad: a govern­ment development agency from the North, a government of the South representing an emerging region like eastern Africa and the global alliance of networks and agencies focused on disabilities.

Nepal will be represented by the Minister for Women, Children & Social Welfare and a group of select activists. They were instrumental last year in ensuring the enactment of the new Disability Rights Act, a groundbreaking document that aligns the country to the Interna­tional Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities and makes Nepal a progressive nation on social inclusion, at least on paper.

In preparation of the global sum­mit, a stakeholder summit was recently organized in Kathmandu. Dozens of activists showcased their achievements and shared their sto­ries. Rarely has such an event been organized in Nepal where social inclusion and disability activists meet. As Shudarson Subedi, the President of the National Federation of Disabled Nepal, highlighted in his opening speech, disability agenda is rarely linked to overall national development agenda. There are pos­itive changes in terms of social inclu­sion in Nepal but disability issues are still neglected. Mainstreaming complex issues like social inclusion of marginalized groups, including people with disabilities, is hard.

Independent, full-fledged pro­grams focusing on disability rights are rare. Even though explanation of such misery is found in the “main­streaming” principle, it is hard to justify it from a practical point of view especially if nothing else hap­pens for the cause.

The national event in Nepal made it clear that there is an incredible group of activists and experts, with tremendous passion and determination working to bring positive changes.

Other positive things are happen­ing too. The Ministry of Education with the support of external devel­opment partners are working on a more inclusive education system. This long term plan, if implemented properly, will allow children with disabilities in integrated schools.

However, more effort is required to make Nepal an inclusive and open society for the disabled. Resources are required to scale up and bold partnerships called for to pro­mote best practices and innovative approaches. Organizations working for the cause of disability must be able to work together, sharing prac­tices and promoting joint initiatives.

Thematic clusters on single issues related to disability and social inclu­sion could be rolled together to create more synergies and achieve scale. It should also promote sus­tainable initiatives to break the usual dependency trap.

If businesses and citizens consider improving lives of the disabled as a personal responsibility, it would play a crucial role in making Nepal a better place for all. External devel­opment partners could play an important role in supporting such an eco-system, rewarding actors who bring tangible results.

The state at all levels have the duty to act and promote the imple­mentation of the new Act, starting with a massive capacity building of local bodies. Elected officers must be considerate of people with dis­abilities and other disadvantaged groups. They must be responsive and accountable to them, as they constitute a considerable voting bloc. Helping the disabled should always be a part of the broader agenda of developing Nepal, where marginalized and vulnerable groups also have a role to play.

Hopefully the Global Disability Summit will help create momentum both internationally and locally.

The author is co-founder of ENGAGE, an NGO partnering with youths living with disabilities.

[email protected]

When the current govern­ment took office in Feb­ruary this year, there was excitement over the prospect of stability and a new era of ‘pros­perity.’ Five months later, even though it is too early to give a definitive judgment, much of the excitement has evaporated. The promise of an end to ‘business as usual’ has failed to materialize; the tough talk of ending ‘syndi­cates’ in transport sector died down. Instead there are whis­pers of allowing the status quo to remain until a new arrangement, and outsourcing of public poli­cy to interest groups. Likewise, the talk of overhauling the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has been limited to just that and the idea of forming think-tanks within the PMO to generate policy options hasn’t left the drawing board.Much of this chaos and criti­cism stems from lack of adequate decision-making structure and absence of institutionalized deci­sion-making culture. Ad-hocism may sometimes have its merit, but in general it does more harm than good. The first priority for this government should have been putting together a structure to streamline decision-making as well as implementation process­es. Instead ministers and Nepal Communist Party officials have been busy unraveling the exist­ing structure without ensuring a proper replacement.

It isn’t too late to undo some of the early missteps provided that the members of the govern­ment have the humility to review and reflect on their actions so far. Instead of seeing this sudden surge in protests as a grand con­spiracy, they should ask them­selves: where have we failed?

The solution is still the same: putting together a proper struc­ture. This should start at all levels simultaneously but most impor­tantly at the nerve center of the government: the PMO. Currently the PMO has too many cooks—both political appointees and civil servants—working at cross-pur­pose with no integration of their services and accountability.

While the political appointees have may the prime minister’s ears, it is the career civil servants who have authority to get things done. And there has historically been mutual hostility between the two sets of staff—affecting the efficacy of the PMO, as well other ministries and departments.

The reporting and accountabil­ity structure in the PMO and oth­er ministries and departments should be streamlined. There should be a clearly designated Chief of Staff or Head of Staff who acts as a buffer between the exec­utive and the entire team. This allows for structured flow of infor­mation, inputs and decisions.

Such a structure will make the entire team responsible—lead­ing to increased likelihood that any announcements the prime minister or the executive makes is backed by due-diligence and homework, thus ensuring its success. It will also minimize the risk of party officials leveraging associations with the prime min­ister for personal gains. Such a structure will also lend credence and status to prime minister’s numerous advisors while deal­ing with foreign government and their entities—providing a clear pecking order for others to see and interact with.

In the United States, almost all executive-level offices have a designated chief of staff, includ­ing Congressmen. The position combines functions of private secretary, confidante and advi­sor—giving the office bearer broad authority to decide who gets to see the executive or what informa­tion reaches his or her desk.

There is an urgent need to streamline the PMO and oth­er executive offices through a Cabinet decision—laying down the standard operating proce­dures and hierarchy—integrat­ing the roles and responsibilities of both career civil servants and political appointees. In the long run, this should be institutionalized through a parliamentary act.

Hands up who did not watch the World Cup this year? Or Wimble­don? Or even the British Golf Open, held in my home town of Carnoustie in Scotland? Perhaps you were dreaming instead of the next summer Olympics, set for 2020 in Tokyo? Perhaps, even, you are one of the men I have seen around Kathmandu, who are in training for the swimming events…I have been doing quite a bit of swim­ming this summer and have noticed a strange phenomena. There are a remark­able number of Nepali and Indian men who consider themselves to be Olympians in the pool. They approach the pool with a swagger that equals that of Captain Jack Sparrow, eye the water as if looking for Moby Dick, then either throw themselves in or do a clumsy dive. Having discovered none of these guys are Asian Michael Phelps, every time that happens I hold my breath. Not in anticipation of the gigantic tidal wave coming towards me as a result of this. No, I hold my breath because the deep end of the pool only comes up to my chin. This means it cannot be more than five feet deep. Surely that is not deep enough for an amateur swimmer to safely dive in to?

Once in the water, the would-be Olym­pian causes geysers of water to rise as he flaps about in whichever style he chooses. With great gusto he swims half the length of the pool then stands, panting, with a look of accomplishment on his face. Being that hotel pools in Kathmandu are not particularly long, certainly not the standard 50-meter Olympic pool, he has probably covered eight meters at most. Then he will, always, float face down, arm outstretched, in a manner similar to that taught to a small child on their first swimming lesson.

He may even attempt another eight metre dash, spluttering as he goes. That done, he will remove himself and his goggles, and perhaps even his waterproof speakers and earphones, from the pool and collapse exhausted on the recliner chair. With his masculinity assured among any watching friends, the recovering macho-man will head off out of the pool area around 12 minutes after arriving.

Four minutes in the pool, eight minutes to recover, seems to be the standard. If there are more than one Phelps in the pool, god help us. They may even stretch to six or seven minutes as they try to outdo each other in a way teenage boys might do. Or they might just stand around in the water chatting to each other. The way teenage girls might do.

Meantime I am taking my time, doing my 30 minutes up and down without touching bottom, in a sedate, relaxed manner. More marathon than sprint. Yes, I am considerate of other swimmers, and no, the water does not form waves.

Member of federal lower house Kalu Devi Biswokarma has repeatedly spoken of how house owners in Kathmandu refused to rent her a room just because she is a dalit. Around three months ago there was another news of a reputed journalist not being able to rent a place because of his caste; the police had even arrested the house owners in this case. Another bit of news read: ‘A Biswokarma roughs up a Pariyar accused of touching a public well’. Why are these things hap­pening and what do these diverse incidents suggest? A few months ago there was a cyber-crime related case lodged with Kathmandu police. The main accused was a Pariyar and the main victim was a Biswokarma. There was a clear groupism between differ­ent castes in this case, so much so that even the dalit rights campaign­ers found themselves in opposing camps. There are many such unfor­tunate cases of inter-community discriminations in Nepal.

Even within the traditionally marginalized communities like dalits, women, janjatis, Madhesis, oppressed classes, and laborers, there is a lot of bad blood. A lim­ited number of people from these communities have usurped all gov­ernment quotas, opportunities and services. This in turn has badly dam­aged their larger movements for collective rights.

Of course this problem is not limited to Nepal. Yet that does not undercut the scale of the problem. One dalit discriminates against another dalit because even within the dalit community, there is a social hierarchy which its members accept. So a Biswokarma discrimi­nates against a Pariyar, and a Mijar discriminates against a Gandarva. There is no marriage between dif­ferent dalit castes and in some cases one set of dalits do not even use water that is ‘polluted’ by another set of dalits.

If we don’t start a campaign against these discriminations within the dalit community soon then we might as well forget the larger goal of dalit emancipation. Even though we sometimes get to hear members of some ‘superior’ dalit communi­ties speak of the need to end these discriminations, not much has hap­pened on the ground.

Nor is this just an issue of dalits. There is as big a problem within Adivasi janajatis as well. For instance there are entrenched discrimina­tory practices within the Newar community, as those belonging to Chame and Pode sub-groups are publicly shunned. While some janajati leaders have reached the higher echelons of power, the janjati leadership is still silent on the problems faced by the poorly-represented Raute, Chepang and Kusunda communities.

Likewise, the moment for wom­en’s liberation has been usurped by a few elites and wives and relatives of powerful political leaders. It is not just a problem of Nepal but of South Asia as a whole that for a woman to establish herself in any field she either has to be born into an aris­tocratic family or has to marry into one. Although the fight for women’s emancipation should have the par­ticipation of women from all castes, classes, religions and communities, Brahmin women or women related to powerful political leaders have hijacked the movement. The state of dalit, janajati, chepang, Muslim and Madhesi women is still pitiable.

Similarly, leadership positions of major political parties as well as the major Madhesi parties are occupied by a limited number of Madhesi castes. While the Maithil Brahmins, Kayasthya, Tripathi, Bhu­mihar and Yadav occupy nearly all the top positions, the Madhesis from dalit, halkhor, Chamar and Musahar communities, as well as Madhesi women, have little or no say.

There are thus big contradictions in all the movements for the rights of the marginalized communities in Nepal. If these contradictions cannot be resolved amicably and in the spirit of inclusiveness, common legal rights and proportional rep­resentation, the fight for minority rights may soon fizzle out. Margin­alized communities cannot make big demands of the state while they themselves are not inclusive.