A Nepalese security officer oversees a political rally in Kathmandu in April 2006.
Photo: Leena Rikkilä, IDEA
On 8 November 2006, the seven party alliance and the CPN (Maoists) in Nepal signed an historic peace agreement which ended a decade long armed insurgency. Following a popular uprising in April this year, which forced King Gyanendra to end his direct rule and appoint a multi-party government, the Maoists entered into negotiations with the government.
The November peace agreement specifically includes provision for the election of a Constituent Assembly, due to be held by June 2007. At the request of political parties and civil society in Nepal, International IDEA responded to these political developments by launching a two and a half year project designed to support constitution building. The project is to be implemented with national partners, such as political parties, and coordinated with UNDP and other members of the international community.
“Surely now the hard work only begins to ensure that this constitution building process will be inclusive and participatory, otherwise we may witness another armed insurgency in coming years”, says IDEA’s Programme Manager for Asia Leena Rikkilä, who witnessed the peace statement day between the seven party alliance and the CPN (Maoists) on 10 November in Kathmandu.
The overall objective of IDEA’s Nepal programme is to support a peaceful, inclusive and participatory constitution building process which can lay the foundation for a sustainable democracy. More specifically, by providing comparative experiences, IDEA aims to build capacity of participants in the political process and to promote discussions that lead to the development of a consensus on constitutional issues.
In 2004, when few international bodies saw prospects for making inroads into the political impasse, IDEA instead conducted a series of dialogues – with political parties and civil society – to discuss how to initiate a negotiated settlement to Nepal’s conflict and how a constitutional process may be linked to such a peace process. IDEA looked at key institutional design aspects of the Nepali constitution and how these could be shaped to engender broader democratic participation.
Funded by the Norwegian Embassy in Kathmandu and the UK government, the new project will be implemented in three phases: before, during and after the Constituent Assembly. Activities will include:
- Providing training on constitution making for constituent assembly delegates
- Producing context-relevant and user-friendly materials
- Translating and disseminating key materials derived from comparable processes on electoral systems, federalism, autonomy, affirmative action and governance systems
- Holding intra and inter political party dialogues on constitution-related themes.
Since 1997 International IDEA has been assessing the challenges to Nepal’s nascent democracy, and building a multi-party consensus to support a democratic governance agenda. More recently (since 2004) International IDEA carried out a democracy assessment in Nepal, using IDEA’s State of Democracy assessment methodology, which is a means for local people to scrutinize their own democracy.
The Nepali assessment report will be launched later this year, together with similar regional assessments carried out in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka.
Contact: Leena Rikkilä, Programme Manager for Asia
Discuss
Tell a friend
