Nepal's Participation in Rio+20

Today is not the time when the earth was created about 14 billion years ago, this is not the time when plants and animals started to flourish, this is also not the time when human hoards fought to control their territories. Those were the moments either the nature itself continued to make the earth favourable for survival or the species were not conscious enough to observe what is going on in their mother earth. Today is the time humans should correct their mistakes otherwise the earth is going to be inhabitable putting every earthling at risk. Humans committed several mistakes in the name of getting civilised, industrialized, and more competitive. Who gained what and who lost what has been a serious political issue. But attempts are being made to correct those mistakes.

Perhaps the first attempt was made at global level through the initiative of United Nations in 1972 at Stockholm, in Sweden to protect human environment, where many developed, developing and least developed countries including small Himalayan country Nepal made commitments to reduce the consumption of resources that deteriorates the earth environment. Mistakes were realised and with very optimistic goals heads of different nations signed agreements. After 20 years in 1992 at Rio Brazil, UN organised another conference with huge participation of 172 nations. The name of this famous conference is Earth Summit 1992. 'The UN sought to help Governments rethink economic development and find ways to halt the destruction of irreplaceable natural resources and pollution of the planet' (Ref). In this conference, perhaps for the first time the mistakes were made more clear. The industrialized nations were pointed out and asked for bearing the brunt of environmental destruction. With a great misfortune, by that time scientists have found that the effect of environmental destruction, especially the climate change would be more for developing and least developed nations rather than the industrialized ones. For example, some of the island countries are being affected because of the rising sea level and mountainous countries like Nepal are being affected because of the decreasing amount of snow on the Himalayas. The countries were divided on the line that who made mistakes and who are affected more. It was also committed that 0.7% of total Gross Domestic Product of the industrial nations to be given to developing and least developed nations as a compensation for affecting their lives and their society without committing the mistakes. But by the time Rio +20 is going to take place in 2012 the commitments have not been fulfilled.

What is Rio +20

Rio 20 is a UN conference on sustainable development. It can also be defined as a historical opportunity to define pathways to safer, more equitable, cleaner, greener and more prosperous world for all. Once again 'world leaders, along with thousands of participants from governments, the private sector, NGOs and other groups, are meeting to decide how to reduce poverty, advance social equity and ensure environmental protection on an ever more crowded planet to get to the future humans need and want' (Ref). The priority areas are promotion of decent jobs, clean energy and sustainable development to reduce poverty. This summit has a greater significance to developing countries and basically the least developed countries than other industrialized nations. The conference is being organized June 20-22 at Rio after several meeting, consultations and preparations at national, regional and international level.

The Rio +20 conference has double pronged focus: reducing the poverty and tackling with the climate change. How does the measures to reduce poverty correlates with the measures taken for tackling with climate change or the global warming is a genuine issues needing more discussions, commitments and translating those commitments into practice. The number of people living in extreme poverty that is unable to eat full stomach and live in a shelter that protects from wind and rain is increasing. The congregation of those people is burgeoning in the rural villages of the least developed countries. In 48 countries of this type the problem in Africa and South Asia is more pervasive and these are the countries that face global warming more. Those countries that have agriculture as major source of GDP are facing problems because of the changing pattern of weather basically the rain that has started to fall unusually and untimely. Agriculture and domestic products have been so fragile and people have less motivation towards their work from domestic products. Young people are out of the country leaving their elders and youngsters desperately at home. These illustrations show that there is a close link between burgeoning poverty and global warming. As the global warming increases so happens to the poverty. Now global warming is a topic of discussion of developed nations but the problem of least developed countries. Had the former realised it as a problem perhaps their commitments would have been materialized. The US, China, Germany and other industrialized and neo-industrialised countries have just discussed and giving cautions to the developing nations but not doing anything significant, at least they have not truly realised their mistakes.

Nepal's participation

Nepal is a small Himalayan country in South Asian. A large portion of Nepal's (147,181 sq km) area have been covered by the snow. The snow provides not only natural beauty but also a source of living by providing cool environment and source of water who live below the mountains. Nepal has been making an active participation to world conferences such as the conferences organized by the UN. It has been a signatory of many international agreements and and commitments. As the issues of Rio +20 - poverty, global warming, and sustainable development - are intractably related to the issues of Nepal, it's genuine participation is a key to the success of this UN Conference.

1992 Earth Summit had a significant impact in Nepal. One of the successful projects of Nepal is Community Forestry. Forest resources have been an integral means of survival in Nepal. 77.7% of fuel consumption in Nepal comes from firewood that is from the forest. Similarly it has great value to promote agriculture and for growing domestic animals. Now what to do and expect in this conference.

Nepal is an active member of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs). It is going to be the head of LDC in 2013 where all the issues I discussed above becomes the issues of not only Nepal but also the issues of all LDCs where Nepal is going to give a leadership. Does Nepal have that capacity to lead those countries? Like other LDCs Nepal also depends on foreign direct investments. A large amount of its fiscal budgets is covered by the donations and loans from indusrialised nations and the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The world is clearly divided into two classes: the have's and the havenot's. Nepal's future will be in trouble if international community stop providing financial support. But the problem is Nepal as a leader of LDC should be able to speak against the tyranny the developed nations are doing so far, especially for the destruction of the global environment - the global warming. The havenot's will never have their share preserved until and unless they can fight against the tyrants. Other LDCs who are participating in the Rio +20 conference are certainly expecting something bold from their prospective leader.

By the time prime minister Baburam Bhattarai of Nepal heading towards the Rio conference a lot of things going on in Nepal. Political leaders are hated at the worst level for the first time because of their inability to give constitution. Their leadership have been a matter of defamation and hatred. Deteriorated from the civil war, and indulging into uncertainty about the future course, Nepal is now a failed state reeling into anarchy. Anything may happen any time in Nepal and there is nobody to take the responsibility for that. Yet the leaders have not realised their mistakes, rather complaining each other. The dramatic ceasefire from the revolting Maoist and the advancement made after people’s revolution has been a complete failure.

Moreover, the largest political party has split into two one leading by a warmonger. The splited faction still want to revolt but doesn't know against who. There is no objective definition of who are their real enemies if there are any. Dr. Bhattarai have been a puppet of Prachanda. It sounds for me that these leaders including the top leaders of other major political parties do not know what is the right track. They seem to be contended as though no development is needed further so they need to compete for the posts. No leaders seem to be cooperating and giving constructive suggestions. Just complaining, blaming and backbiting...just to prove their austerity which they have already lost and is irrecoverable.

I wonder, what the delegates of Nepal are thinking to speak in such conference. What the head of the delegation would speak with the world and what commitment would they make. The world is different and problems are many. Nepal has many problems and it will not come out of the vicious cycle of poverty unless the internal problems are solved first. Why the leaders of Nepal do not understand the facts? Everything is clear...making government, changing it, having the position of minister is not a major thing. Perhaps there are no leaders who have not been in position since last 20 years. Still they are blaming other and telling that they can do if they get the position. It is the world and the simplicity you can prove that counts not the what position you held and you would like to hold. Now is the war against poverty not against what you have been blaming for. Nepal was not looted by anybody and will not be looted in the future. We will be languishing in such limbo until and unless we can realise this fact and help each other to push this country up. Hope the Nepali delegates of Rio +20 conferences have an opportunity to unlock their politically jaded mind and think about the problems widely and find right solutions of the right problems.

Composed at
EDST Lab
University of British Columbia
BC, Canada

Least Developed Countries

Recent (2011) data from World Bank reveal that among 6.7 billion people living in the world, 5.5 billion (82%) live in developing countries. It means that only about 20% of the people live in developed countries. Another figure shows that about 80% of the world resources are held by developed countries. Comparing the use of resources and the number of people, the result is surprising. 80% resources for 20% people and 20% resources for 80% people.

Those living in developing countries (the 20%) are not homogeneous economically. Actually the gap between  rich and poor is significantly higher than we normally assume. For example, Indian billionaires hold 31% of the national GDP and there are 50-70 billionaires in India. It means that the largest democracy (India) in the world has such scary figure where about 31% of national resources are held by only 53 richest people (June 2012). In other poor economies too the gap between poor people and rich people is increasing. The economy is a significant determiner of ones health, education, and social capital. The figures show that now the problem is not only gap between developed and developing countries but also between rich and poor people. Perhaps, the number of poor people in rich countries is decreasing, we can not be sure that similar changes happening in poor countries. Actually, the so called economic boom in newly developed countries such as India and China doesn't necessarily prove that the condition of its people has improved. A country can become rich leaving millions of people in poverty. Even though this is a very crucial issue, I am not going to discuss further in this posting. The purpose of this post is to highlight some of the facts on the Least Developed Countries.

Looking through the lens of development economics, we can find three types of countries in the world today. They are developed countries, developing countries and the least developed countries or LDCs. Obviously first category is clear as it holds the advanced industrial nations. Normally they are the members of G8 (that includes France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and Russia) or the member of Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development or OECD (that includes 34 developed countries of the world). The list of the second types of countries is not so clear. They are also called the countries in economic transition or transition countries. Mostly they are represented by Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, including some oil producing countries. The first four accelerating economies are also called BRIC taking the initials of these four countries.

The third category, which is also my focus here is the Least Developed Countries. They are also called the third world countries but the terms is not used these days because of its derogatory sense and the term "third world" doesn't have exact connotation with the discussion I am going to do here. In 1971 United Nations made a decision to categorise the poorest countries of the world in the category of Leas Developed Countries. Since then LDC has been a popular acronym among development activists and donor agencies. These are the countries categorised in terms of Human Development Index. They are the countries with lowest level of national literacy, fragile and poor economy, poor health facility and basically the number of people living in extreme poverty that is living in 1.25 dollar a day.

There are 48 LDCs in the world today. The majority of LDCs are in Africa. The Least Developed Countries Report 2011 shows that there are 33 in Africa, 14 in Asia and 1 in South America. These 48 countries are:
         

Afghanistan	Madagascar
Angola	Malawi
Bangladesh	Mali
Benin	Mauritania
Bhutan	Mozambique
Burkina Faso	Myanmar
Burundi	Nepal
Cambodia	Niger
Central African Republic	Rwanda
Chad	Samoa
Comoros	Sao Tome and Principe
Congo	Senegal
Djibouti	Sierra Leone
Equatorial Guinea	Solomon Islands
Eritrea	Somalia
Ethiopia	Sudan
Gambia	Timor-Leste
Guinea	Togo
Guinea-Bissau	Tuvalu
Haiti	Uganda
Kiribati	Tanzania
Lao	Vanuatu
Lesotho	Yemen
Liberia	Zambia

Poverty is the major problem in all these countries. Now 36% of the people living in extreme poverty that is less that 1.25 dollar per day (and 78% living in 2 dollar per day) live in the LDCs. The LDCs share 12% of the world population but their contribution to the global Gross Domestic Product remains below 0.9% which is considerably lower than what it was in 1970s. Something to notice here today is that United States alone contribute about 22% of world GDP. Let's analyse the figure once again, 22% by one country and 1% by 48 countries. And this figure is not going to alter. The United Nations for Population Fund predicts that by 2050 the world population will reach 9 billion and 1.67 billion (about 18%) people will be living in LDCs. 

In terms of literacy, the adult literacy of LDCs is only 59.6%. It means that about 60 people in every 100 people can read and write. Because of global movement such as Education for All, Millennium Development Goals and Universal Primary Education the enrolment rate at primary level has reached about 85%, however the enrolment rate of secondary is only 32 percent. It shows that out of 100 only 85 go to primary school and only 32 secondary school age children reach to the secondary level. Looking at the rate of participation at tertiary level, we can claim that there is no progress at all. Only 5.6% people enrol in higher education. There is no data how many of them graduate and how many of them get job after their graduation.


Looking at the trend of Nepal, we can say that now the problem has been shifted to educated unemployed rather than uneducated unemployed. Even those 5.6%, probably the exceptional and brilliant people are not employed, then how can we imagine a better society? Same is the condition for all 48 Least Developed Countries of the World. On top of all problems there is also a burgeoning problem of brain drain. These are the reason why the number of LDCs is increasing and poverty is accelerating in the world. 

Problems are many and questions are even more. What are the solution to all those problems? Can education and qualifications solve these problems? Is investment in education justifiable in those countries? Does human capital formation help to alleviate the extreme poverty those countries enduring since past? How to reduce inequality? Are we educating the citizens of those countries in the right way? What has education done since past about 100 years? Was there not a right type of education or was education inadequate? These are the questions that need to be addressed. This is the time to work together for finding the solution of the problems these countries facing. People may think that the developed and developing countries could provide a panacea as they have been doing as donor agencies. The history of international development assistance shows that no country can achieve sustainable development from donations of rich countries and even from the assistance of World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The individual LDCs should unite and explore the solutions of their common problems.

Defining reality through social constructivism

Reality is a contested issue. What people call a reality seems mere assumption when we try to generalise that in another context. If a reality is not true in all circumstances then we can't claim that as a reality. What was true in the past must be true at present and in future. What is true in Canada must be true in Nepal. Yes some of the assumptions are true such as "we drink water when we are thirsty" but how much thirsty one gets and how much water she needs for saturation is not the same. A question I would like to discuss here is how the 'reality' is defined? The definition of reality is also contested. I would like to be more specific on 'how reality is constructed' rather than defined because I am convinced at least for today is that reality is constructed not predetermined. Reality is fluid, dynamic and contextual. People in a particular social setting construct a reality, probably true for all the members at least for that particular situation.

To illustrate the concept, let me take an issue: 'development'. A serious question here would be 'what is development?'. Having more money, roads, vehicles, schools, hospitals, employment opportunities are the present assumption of development. We have called some western countries as developed ones because they were able to manage those facilities before the some of the Asian and African countries had achieved. Based on this definition of development we made categorization among the countries of the world hence some countries became developed, some became developing and some became least developed ones. To be developed in the same fashion as western countries, the developing countries also constructed roads, developed school systems, set up industries and so on. For doing so developed countries became donors and the others became receivers. The number of least developed countries remained the same because the developed countries remained always ahead in advancing those attributes of development. Are the countries in the global south not getting progress? It is definitely not, as far as I believe now, a lot of progresses have been done. For example people's level of thought has changed, people have different world views to view the world and so forth. Then where the problem is. The answer may not be easy and the answers may be many. But an inference I could easily make is the problem in defining the term development. The attributes given to 'development' was a socially constructed reality and the construction of that reality took place in the western world or the global north. The assumptions of accepting the definition of western reality as universal reality was the major problem. All countries and all societies are different. They have their own features and own ways of progression. One of the solutions could be disregard of western definition of development and accept that reality is socially constructed and value the reality that is constructed at individual social context. Nepal can never be Canada no matter how good the schools are, how good the roads are and how industrial the former wants to be. And we should never assume that Nepal is not developed and Canada is developed. Let's decide what counts good for Nepal and take its progression on its own way.

Reality changes on daily basis. Let me find an example to show how it changes. Before coming to Canada, I used to believe that Canada is a western country. Eurocentric beliefs, westernization, modernisation and other similar terms have some negative connotations in the discussion we used to have when I was in Nepal. I was assuming that those criticisms were not applicable in Canada because it is a western country and it believes on westernization, modernisation and all other ontologies based on western thoughts and beliefs. I was also thinking that I may put myself in a difficult situation because of my critical mind set towards those phenomena. But after I came to Canada and started to debate and discuss among scholars, mostly from western world I started hearing same argument we used to make in Nepal. We used to blame European colonisers for the oppression and hardships many developing countries are facing these days. We used to go against Eurocentric beliefs. My utter surprise now is that almost all of my colleagues are talking the same. Two days ago in an interuniversity research seminar a researcher who was Canadian by citizen and looked like an European by skin blamed colonization and appealed for the decolonization of scholarly research. My question was 'where is the WEST in this earth?' what are western countries, and actually what is westernisation? Now my reality of westernisation and westernism has changed. People in Canada are talking the same thing, they are blaming colonisation and westernisation.

The changing trend of my personal reality - probably it is my radical constructivist standpoint - has engendered another assumption and the assumption is that Canada was a colony and here are people suffering from Europeanisation. The issue of Indigenous or First Nations people is so pervasive. Yes this is the time for revitalisation of those values that were suppressed by the British and French colonisers in the past. Yes it is also the time for decolonisation of scholarly activities because we can't understand the reality following the epistemology developed by the western scholars or the colonisers themselves. But in terms of my definition of westernisation and the the question I raised in the seminar, I am wondering how those assumption would be dealt when I go to Europe and ask among the British scholars. Actually, I would like to ask them, we have assumed that 'you are, if not at least, your ancestors were, Europeans, they were colonisers, and the world was universalise on what you thought was true. You defined the word development and asked the world to be developed on the way you wanted to be but do you think this assumption is true? If you think these assumptions are wrong then tell me again where is the WEST and who are westerners, who are colonisers? See how my reality of westernisation and westernism has changed since I came to Canada. I am anticipating that when I go to Britain and have discussion with the British scholar my assumption of westernisation would change.

I may change this post in the future, but for now I would like to conclude that reality is socially and contextually constructed issue, it goes on changing as we find ourselves in changed context and circumstances.

'Concept Mapping' as a mixed method research

Concept mapping is a mixed method research method that allows the quantitative analysis of qualitative data. This method is popular in program evaluation, however, it has been used in the field of social sciences as it allows to explore an area of research in a more organised way. According to Trochim (1989), there are five steps that a researcher follows while following concept mapping as a method for social science research. First, a specific questions is posed to a number of participants and responses are collected. Second, responses are edited for clarity and redundant responses are removed. Third, responses are returned to participants and are asked to group them together into concepts. Fourth, the groupings made by participants are analysed using multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis procedures. Finally, the groupings made by the participants are combined and most significant clusters are selected for the final concept map. The decisions are made on the basis of statistical and conceptual fit.
It seems like a mixed method research not because it follows some traditional statistical tools such as t test and z test. But because of its inherent quality of being positivist rather than following the principle of construction of new knowledge subjectively. As the researcher counts the concepts repeated and and grouped it looks like a quantitative one. It is a mixed method because it is quantitative in process but qualitative in content. (I will change this post when i will have more information on concept mapping as a research method)