Since 2001, The Asia Foundation has worked intensively in developing and implementing facilitated, interest-based mediation and is currently a recognized leader in community mediation in Nepal. The Foundation promotes community mediation to improve access to justice at the local level and establish a culture of conflict resolution within communities.
The Foundation initially initiated its community mediation program in three districts by supporting the then Ministry of Local Development (MLD) to introduce and pilot community-based dispute resolution. This support was then expanded to eight additional districts through the support of different donor agencies. Currently, around 12,000 community mediators provide dispute resolution services in 150 plus rural municipalities and municipalities across Nepal. In May 2015, the Foundation implemented interest-based facilitated dialogue and mediation in seven earthquake-affected districts to address local disputes arising from issues related to post-earthquake short-term relief and medium to long-term recovery. The support in these locations continued till March 2021, when the project phased out, handing over the reins to the local government after six years of continuous support in strengthening mediation. The Foundation is currently implementing the Community Mediation program in seven partner municipalities under its flagship Subnational Governance Program (SNGP), supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). As of March 2022, the Foundation and its local partners have received over 40,000 mediation cases and have achieved a resolution rate of about 90 percent. These figures are a strong indicator of Community Mediation being a culturally acceptable and effective means of dispute resolution. Further, a network of broader service providers has been established in all the project districts to facilitate referral and ensure quality, integrated, and holistic justice delivery services to beneficiaries. Leveraging a decade of mediation experience, the Foundation also supports a network of practicing community mediators to amplify and include the voices of practitioners in policy making. Over the last two decades, Community Mediation has evolved in sophistication to handle a variety of disputes, including individual disputes, group disputes, gender-based violence cases, domestic violence cases, and complex multi-stakeholder disputes related to conflicts over natural resources, post-disaster rehabilitation & relief distribution and social injustice and identity-based discrimination. Recently, the Foundation has broadened the discourse to incorporate gender and restorative justice lenses to conflict transformation. This has further consolidated the need to engage with broader themes and promote resolutions that recognize and proactively strive not to perpetuate historical, social, or structural injustices. Mediation in Nepal The transition to the federal governance structure in Nepal presented opportunities and challenges at all levels of governance and society. At the national and regional levels, there was uncertainty and conflict between different levels of government as the transition unfolded. At the local level, the change presented opportunities to engage local communities in governance, but the transition process also suffered from uncertainties that caused confusion, conflict, and unrest. Specific to the implementation of community mediation, the newly promulgated Constitution 2015, Mediation Act 2014, and Local Government Operations Act 2017 (LGOA) changed the governance landscape and brought structural changes to judicial mechanisms at the local level. They established a close interface between community mediation and newly formed judicial committees headed by the deputy mayor or deputy chairperson at the municipal or rural-municipal level. First, the policies shifted mediation centers from municipalities to the lowest administrative ward units. Second, judicial committees, led by elected representatives, were responsible for regulating and monitoring mediators and mediation activities at the local level. Supporting this model for a tiered, locally led justice delivery system has the potential to bring justice administration closer to individual communities and make it more responsive to the time, cost, and efficiency needs of citizens. This has provided safeguards of due process for quality control of services to ensure access to holistic justice delivery service. At the national level, the Foundation is working closely with the Mediation Council, an apex body housed at the Supreme Court, in developing policies and strategic plans that align mediation policies and practices with the transition to federalism. At the subnational level, the program is working to enhance coordination with local, provincial, and national stakeholders, including newly elected local representatives and judicial committee members, to ensure program sustainability, ownership, and support. Through its project, the Foundation continuously works to make the practice of mediation more culturally relevant and strives to deepen the understanding of Nepali approaches to community mediation and social harmony and re-configuring approaches consistent with and drawing from the best of Nepali culture. Simultaneously, keeping abreast of the current state restructuring in Nepal, the Foundation is shifting its emphasis to institutionalizing a model that harmonizes and sustains high-quality community mediation practices.
