Day 9 - UN World Food Program

Today I went to the World Food Program office in Patan (where I also gave out my phone number to people on the streets). I spoke with Seetashma Thapa about getting someone who works there a formal interview (recording sound). She's going to try and help me out and asked if I had any photos on the role of Women in Nepal -- someone she knows is putting together a gallery: I gave her my website to look at what I have.

Seetashma was super helpful and printed out a bunch of information on how bandhs affect their program. It seems as though I hit the jackpot to the link between strikes and their effects on the economy.

A summarization of the information:

...in addition to political parties and thier affiliates, in the past year local councils, ethnic groups, students, journalists, and even teachers have all organized bandhs, often bringing specific regions or sectors of the economy to complete stand still.... this is reeking havoc on business.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Nepal recorded 755 major events in 2008 alone. In addition to these major bandhs there are also hundreds of thousands of smaller scale bandhs.

The impact caused by bandhs on daily livelihoods and food security is immediate, and it is often the poorest populations who are worst hit. About a quarter of Nepal's population spends more than 75 percent of their income on food. When this population is prevented from earning a day's wage - due to business closure, inability to travel to work or inability to access markets - this most often means missing a day's meal. When bandhs extend for several months, the situation for the poor becomes critical.

Broader Economic Impact: Nepal is ranked as the poorest country in South Asia, and ten years of civil conflict has resulted in GDP growth falling from over 6 percent in 2000 to 2.3 percent in 2007. A day's bandh has commonly been estimated to cost the economy around NPR630 million (which represents close to one day's GDP) in direct industrial loss alone.

The Indirect costs to the economy of continued social unrest are arguably even more serious. There is strong indication that the recent period of peace has been amongst the most demoralizing for business.

--Businesses perceived strike action and ongoing political instability as the two major constraints to economic growth during 2008 (above power outages and labour law). As the financial markets around the world tighten due to the global financial crisis, Nepal faces a serious challenge in maintaining, let alone increasing, investment.

The social factors which give rise to increased social instability such as poverty, food insecurity and social exlusion need to be carefully monitored and continually reduced. Justification for serious action to immediately reduce bandhs and labour strikes lies in the immense economic costs, and the livelihood impacts caused by Nepal's increasing bandh culture.

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My idea now is to get an interview from the organization as well as document them giving food to an area in need (the orange represents areas they deliver food to):

Other things to photograph->

Businesses (open and closed)

Poverty

Trucks on a busy road

Markets (open and closed)

Hospitals

Still need to get an Economist and Students [these are still the two main objectives of the trip]