CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION - World Food Programme

Nepal Food Security and Vulnerability Profile 2000

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To the problem of small size,landlockedness, insularity andextreme dispersal of populationin the mountainous region mustbe added the extreme paucity ofland-based resources.

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 THE COUNTRY

Nepal is a land-locked country with an estimated population of 23 million. It is locatedbetween two powerful neighbours: China and India. The topography in Nepal is varied anddiverse, and its altitude ranges from 60 metres to 8,848 metres above sea level. Nepal is hometo the Mount Everest, the highest mountain peak in the world, and seven other of the 10world’s highest mountain peaks. These high mountain ranges make up 35 percent of the totalarea of the country. This gives Nepal a geography that is unique, and that parallels very fewcountries in the world. Nepal's altitude is diverse, and so is its climate. Climate ranges fromhot tropical in the Terai to moderate sub-tropical in the hill and to tundra in the mountain.

The 75 administrative districts that make up the country are further grouped into 14 zones andfive development regions. The country extends 885 km in average length and 193 km averagewidth, set in an area of 147,181 sq. km. Ecologically, the country has three strips of land, eachextending from east to west. They are called Mountain, Hill and Terai which contain 35, 42and 23 percent of total area, and 7, 46 and 47 percent of total population, respectively,reflecting a very uneven distribution of population, ranging as low as 4 persons per sq. km inDolpa district of Mountain to as high as 2,270 persons per sq. km in Kathmandu district ofhills.

Nepal's population was only 9.4 million in 1961, which increased by 2.5 times within fortyyears. Population growth rate increased from 2.1 in 1971 to 2.6 in 1981 and then decreased to2.1 in 1991. The current annual growth rate of 2.37 percent hardly needs 29 years to doublethe population. This problem is further compounded by uneven distribution of population,rapid and haphazard urbanisation, increasing migration, high fertility and gradually decliningmortality.

The Himalayan mountains, the relatively long distance to Chinese ports, and the sparseeconomic activities and infrastructure in the vast area of Tibet limit Nepal's trade with China.Hence, Nepalese economy is very much dependent on trade with and through India. That,together with the fact that the border between the two countries is very 'porous', ensures thatNepalese economic policy cannot be determined independently of India's, notwithstanding thetransit trade agreement between Nepal and India. This is because smuggling would occur ifthere was much divergence between domestic prices in the two countries for any tradableproduct, something which India is unwilling to tolerate (Anderson: 2000).

The paucity of land-based resources in Nepal extends farbeyond mineral resources with a commercial value toinclude much basic resources as agricultural land. Out ofroughly three million hectares of cultivated land in thecountry, Terai, hill and mountain account for about 42percent, 50 percent and 8 percent, respectively. Althoughpopulation density is low in the mountains compared to

the other regions, population density per hectare of cultivated land is high there (more than 5persons/ha) like the other two regions (Thapa and Rosegrant: 1995). Overall, only 20 percentof land area in the country is cultivable, 39 percent is covered by forest, and the rest isunproductive land with little commercial value, unless properly utilised for eco-tourism.


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Table 1.1: Human DevelopmentNepal South Asia

(weightedaverage)

Year Value ValueLife expectancy (years) 1998 58 63Adult literacy (% 15+) 1997 38 51Combined enrolment ratio (%) 1997 59 52Infant mortality rate 1998 72 72(per 1000 live births)GNP per capita (US$) 1998 210 436Real GDP per capita (PPP$) 1997 1090 1600Pop without access to safewater (%)1990-96 56 22Pop without access to sanitation (%) 1990-96 94 80Daily calorie supply 1997 108 111 (as % of requirement)Malnourished children under 5 (%) 1990-97 47 51HDI 1997 0.463 0.532GDI 1997 0.441 0.511

Source: The Mahabub ul Haq Human Devt. Centre (2000), pp. 205-6

Table 1.2: Gender Disparities Profile(as % of male)

Year Nepal South Asia

Adult female literacy 1997 37 57Female primary school gross enrol. 1990-97 71 80Mean years of schooling 1992 31 33Female life expectancy 1998 98 102Real GDP per capita (PPP$) 1997 54 39Earned income share 1995 50 33GDI 1997 0.441 0.511

Source: The Mahabub ul Haq Human Devt. Centre (2000), p. 210

Nepal is an agricultural country, with more than four-fifths of its population in rural areas andaround 40 percent of its GDP originates from this sector. Land distribution is very skewed,resulting in an uneven distribution of income. Nepal Living Standard Survey, 1996 showedthat in nominal terms, the bottom 80 percent of households earn 50 percent of total income,while the top 20 percent earn the other 50 percent of income.

Nepal is still at a very low level of development, with annual per capita income of only US$ 220,and with a ranking of 144 out of 174 countries on the human development index ladder (UNDP,2000). In terms of human development, Nepal is amongst the countries with the lowest HDI rankand is the one with the lowest HDI value in South Asia. It has extremely poor record in terms ofsocial development as manifested in the values of its social indicators. Nepal is poor even by theSouth Asian standard, which is the most disadvantaged region in the whole world. According tothe 2000 Human Development Report of the South Asia, Nepal is the poorest performer in thesocial sector in the South Asiaregion (Table 1.1).

According to Nepal LivingStandards Survey, 1996, 42percent of the population arebelow national poverty line(NRs 4,404 per capita peryear), with significantgeographical differencesbetween mountain on the onehand, and hill and Terai on theother. AS high as 56 percentof the population in themountain are below thepoverty line, whereas thecorresponding figures for hillsand Terai are 41 and 42percents, respectively.

Marked differences existbetween male and femalein terms of differenthuman developmentindicators (Table 1.2).Nepal is among the fewcountries in the worldwhere the life expectancyof female is less than thatof male. Thus, Nepalstill has a long way to goin accelerating the paceof its economic growth and human development. The situation of children and women in Nepalis still one of the worst in the whole world. There is significant difference in human developmentlevels across the districts of Nepal, which provides the ground for ranking districts forprogramme intervention.


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Poverty alleviation has been themain agenda of the democraticgovernment, which it thought toreduce through rural developmentthat finds its way in theformulation and implementationof a 20-year AgriculturalPerspective Plan (APP), 1995.

1.2 DEVELOPMENT IN THE PAST DECADES

For many decades prior to 1990, Nepal's economy had been performing very poorly. Percapita income in Nepal was less than $200 during the three decades prior to 1990, and in realterms had grown at less than one percent per year. Between 40 and 60 percent of populationwere in absolute poverty, virtually all of them in rural areas. Non-agricultural activities weredominated by heavy regulation or crowded out by state enterprises, and agriculture remainedvery traditional because of artificially depressed product prices and little access to moderntechnologies, input or infrastructure. Farm returns were depressed not just directly so as tokeep urban food prices down but also indirectly via a combination of over-valued exchangerates, protection from import competition from industrial sector, and under-investment inpublic infrastructure and human capital in rural areas (Anderson: 1999; Bajracharya andSharma: 1996).

The country entered into new democratic era in 1990, with huge catch-up potential. With anobjective of achieving high and sustained growth, employment generation, and ultimatelyalleviation of poverty, Nepal initiated a sweeping economic reform programme after therestoration of democracy in 1990. The reform covered almost all sectors of the economy. Inspite of these efforts, average annual growth rate of GNP was 2.7 percent in 1997-98 and 4.6percent in 1998-99.

Poverty alleviation has been the main agenda of thedemocratic government. There is not improvement in thestatus of poverty. The Agricultural Perspective Plan(APP) aims at boosting agricultural growth concentratingon four input investment priorities: irrigation, roads andpower, technology, and fertiliser. However, the politicalinstability that emerged due to frequent changes ingovernment and poor governance, and structuralweaknesses of the economy have had negative impact onthe economic performance of the country in recent years. Weaknesses have re-emerged andhave adversely affected the macroeconomic indicators. The impact of APP has not yet beendiscernible, as there is sharp fluctuations in the agricultural productivity.

1.3 AGRICULTURE’S RELATIVE DECLINE

Agriculture prior to 1980s accounted for well over half of the GDP and more than 80 percentof employment and merchandise exports. In the latter 1980s, Nepal was given preferentialaccess to some OECD markets for carpets and clothing which began to change thecomposition and direction of exports, but even by the end of that decade agriculture stillaccounted for nearly half of GDP, around two-fifths of merchandise exports and four-fifths ofemployment. Since then, agriculture's share of GDP and merchandise exports has fallen toaround 40 and 15 percent, respectively, the share of carpets and clothing in merchandiseexports has escalated to two-thirds, and the share of GDP traded internationally has doubled.Meanwhile the exports of tourism services have remained about half as large as allmerchandise exports throughout 1980s and 1990s, accounting for about one-fifth or one-sixthof all goods and service exports, while agriculture's share of that larger aggregate has fallenfrom one-third to one-twentieth. In particular, the contribution of the agricultural sector tototal export is dwindling fast (Anderson: 1999).


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In order to improve the human development indexthere is a need to close the gender gap in relation tohealth and education indicators. There are significantgender differences in relation to life expectancy,literacy and income, the three components of HumanDevelopment Index (HDI). The difference alsoperpetuates among the children. For example, in1996 the net primary school enrolment of girls was60 percent as compared to 79 percent for boys.Similarly, the adult literacy rate of female was 28 ascompared to 62 percent of males.

• Improve food availability through increase in agricultural productivity and physical access inorder to meet the demand for food of the rapidly increasing population.

• Increase access to the available food through increase in employment opportunities especiallyfor the poor people.

• Improve utilization of food which requires improved gender relation, provision ofsuperstructure, infrastructure including drinking water and sanitation, education in order toproperly utilize the access to food that the people have.

• Prevent and mitigate the effects of risks and hazards that expose people to food insecurityacross the preceding three dimensions.

1.4 THE CHALLENGE

HMGN’s main objectives are alleviation of poverty and achieving higher growth rate in theeconomy. With still 42 percent of its population living below absolute poverty, the realchallenge that lies ahead of Nepal is to reduce the level of poverty and improve the overallhuman development index, which is one of the lowest in the South Asia region. This will onthe one hand require a sustained level of high growth in the coming decades, and on the otherhand a more balanced socio-economicdevelopment. A focus on humanresource development will also berequired to sustain the level of highgrowth, and more employmentgeneration will be required to improvethe human development index.Macroeconomic polices beyond 2000have to reflect this challenge.Institutional capabilities andgovernance have to be improved fortaking up these challenges.

Associated with above challenge is the basic challenge of food security. The challenge hasfour dimensions:

Thus, meeting food security challenges boils down to achieving higher economic growth ratewith poverty alleviation, which is the main objective of the current plan of the government.

1.5 PAST EFFORTS TOWARDS FOOD SECURITY

The efforts to increase aggregate agricultural production, and the implementation of povertyalleviation programmes, food subsidy, and the basic needs programme were taken to improvefood security in the country in the past. However, the direct food security concern in Nepalsurfaced since the Sixth five-year plan (1980-85) when the Basic Needs Programme wasconceived, and when the country was at the state of transition from a net food exporter to anet food importer. Since then, the subsequent annual, periodic and perspective plans haveemphasised the subject in one or the other way (Thapa and Rosegrant: 1995). But a separatefood security policy has not yet been formulated.

The eighth plan (1992-97) outlined the major national development policies on food andnutrition. It mentioned that the main reasons for malnutrition and low nutrition are thescarcity of foodgrains, imbalance in distribution, poverty, illiteracy and lack of healthservices. It recognised protein-energy malnutrition is the major problem in the country, and


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• Improve food availability, including the nutritious foods, at household level.• Improve food distribution system by constructing food storage facilities in the rural areas.• Supply micro-nutrients in the areas highly suffering from such deficiencies and make legal

provision for the distribution of iodized salts.• Provide services of anthropometric measurement for children, and health services for pregnant

and lactating mothers.• Expand the snack feeding programme at school level.

emphasised on food production and effective food supply system in geographically remoteareas and communities badly affected by the food scarcity and poor nutritional status.

In order to improve the nutritional status, the ninth plan (1998-2002) outlined the followingpolicies among others:

1.6 OUTLINE OF REPORT

Two reports are produced for the FSVP; one is the main report describing food security andvulnerability situation at the national level, and the other one is the district cluster reportdescribing the situation at district cluster level. As there are fifteen district clusters, fifteendistrict cluster level reports will be prepared and complied. This is the main report. Followingthis introductory chapter, Chapter Two details the study methodology, and Chapter Threegives an overview of the food security and vulnerability situation, drawing on the secondaryinformation. Chapter Four to eight form the core part of the study as they are based on theprimary data collected from the field. In particular, Chapter Four deals with the characteristicsof food insecure households, and details the profile of the vulnerable groups. Chapters Fiveand Six focus on risk and hazards, their impacts, and the coping strategies adopted at thehousehold level for mitigating those impacts, respectively. Food security and gender formsthe subject matter of Chapter Seven, and finally discussion of major findings and theirimplications are briefly laid out in Chapter Eight.


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The main purpose of these efforts areto help in the development of the foodaid planning, targeting and interventionframework by investigating into threeinterrelated questions: a) who are thefood insecure?, b) where they are , andc) why they are food insecure?

CHAPTER II

FOOD SECURITY AND VULNERABILITY PROFILE METHODOLOGY

2.1 MAIN AIMS AND PURPOSES

Instituted in 1999 within WFP, Vulnerability Analysis and Mapping is an analytical tool forWFP relief and development programme design, management and evaluation. In consonancewith the above, the specific VAM objectives in partner countries are to:

• Develop focussed and useful information products specifically linked to WFP programmedecision making needs;

• Transfer skills and develop sustainable capacity for information system planning andanalysis among local partners; and

• Support broad efforts at food security and vulnerability policy and programme developmentat the national level in VAM regions/countries.

Initially, VAM/Nepal performed vulnerability analysis and mapping at national level based onsecondary data, which helped in improved targeting. Among others the objective of theVAM/Nepal efforts during 1999/2000 was to develop a detailed understanding of the causalpattern of vulnerability in Nepal, as well as the location and socio-economic characteristics of themost vulnerable population groups in Nepal. Thus, the VAM work plan was designed to firstprovide a national level picture of vulnerability, in broad-brush detail consistent withVAM/Nepal resource availability, and then to quickly narrow the scope of the analysis to specificpopulation groups and regions of interest for WFP programming. Eventually, WFP requiresinformation that allows it to prioritise VDCs in its programme districts for long-termdevelopment activities.

This approach required a series of activities: a)preparation of an issue (white) paper, b) preliminaryidentification of vulnerable groups, c) rapidassessment of vulnerable groups, d) revision ofdistrict level targeting tool, e) program resourcecapability mapping, f) profile of vulnerable groups, f)VDC ranking/profiling in targeted districts, and g)vulnerability monitoring. Of these activities, issuepaper, identification of vulnerable groups and rapid assessment of vulnerable groups wereundertaken in the year 2000. Besides, a study entitled Food Security and VulnerabilityAssessment in selected Districts of Nepal was carried out by a German government fundedPlanning Mission by conducting a field work in three districts: Makawanpur, Achham andBajhang. The main output of this study are analysing food security and vulnerability at districtlevel, explaining development constraints and opportunities, and developing a methodology forthe VDCs ranking. The analysis and findings are reported at district level, and the findings arereferred to in this document occasionally.

The VAM issue paper provides an understanding of food insecurity and vulnerability based on asynthesis of information derived from a literature review, key informants’ discussions, and apreliminary analysis of relevant, existing secondary data. The issue paper provides the initialrationale for CSO development and a starting point for the subsequent VAM analytical activities.Those subsequent analyses are intended to fill-in any gaps in the current understanding ofvulnerability and food insecurity and to address specific programming questions not covered inthe existing information base.


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The final unit of sampling is a vulnerable communitywhich has been arrived at following two-stage stratified,purposive sampling. The study was biased to survey themore vulnerable communities. The sampling unit in firststage is a district and that of a second stage is the morefood insecure and vulnerable communities. Thus, beforethe selection of districts in the first stage, the country hasbeen divided into 16 clusters by organizing a nationallevel workshop, and then districts have been chosen.Then in the second stage, more vulnerable communitieswere identified and prioritized by conducting a mini-workshop at district level and then first three to fourhighly food insecure communities were selected. In viewof this, the proportion of households estimated as foodinsecure (as reported in figure 4.1, Chapter IV) does notrepresent a district cluster; instead it gives the intensityof the food insecurity in the particular district cluster.The assessment focuses on the food security andvulnerability status of only the rural areas of the country,and explains the characteristics of food insecurehouseholds, the risks that they face, and the copingmechanisms that they adopt by collecting qualitative

The Food Security and Vulnerability Profile study is final review document of food insecurityand vulnerability in Nepal, with implications for WFP/Nepal programme design. It is acompilation of information from: a) VAM issue paper, and secondary data, b) preliminaryidentification of vulnerable groups, and c) rapid assessment of vulnerable groups.

2.2 METHODOLOGY OF THE FOOD SECURITY AND VULNERABILITY PROFILE(FSVP)

As mentioned before the vulnerability profiling proceeds with different activities. The relevantactivities undertaken before the FSVP and their methodologies are given below:

i) Issue Paper It was prepared reviewing existing literature and analysis of district level secondary data relatingto production, income, poverty, natural resources, risks and hazards, infrastructure andgovernment policies relevant to food security and vulnerability.

ii) Preliminary Identification of Vulnerable GroupsSecondary data and key informants’ discussion were used to define priority regions andpopulation groups for preliminary focus. With 75 districts, it was difficult to identify separatepopulation groups within each district to focus in an assessment within the limited resources,both time and money. Instead, it was recommended that, as a first cut, VAM/Nepal undertakea district clustering exercise to group those districts which largely share similar characteristicsaccording to a set of relevant criteria. Therefore, a one day workshop was organised to stratifythe country into different clusters based on the environmental, and socio-economic features.The participants were from different government and Non-government agencies.

iii) Rapid Assessment of Vulnerable Groups

Primary data was collected from 65vulnerable communities of 19districts of the country during May toAugust 2000 (excluding one district,i.e., Manang where fieldwork wasconducted in September) form thebasis of the assessment. Beforeconducting the rapid assessment ofvulnerable groups the country wasdivided into 16 district clusters basedon environmental and socio-economic features (Map 2.1), andexcluding the urban cluster one totwo districts were sampled from theother 15 clusters. The 16 districtclusters and the sampled districts andnumber of communities selectedfrom each sampled districts is givenin Table 2.1 and Map 2.1.1

1 A slight modification of the clusters defined in the workshop was done mainly to reduce the number of theclusters so as to facilitate the analysis


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4

VAM Unit, WFP, Nepal

4

44

4

4

4

200

kilometres

1000

&

DISTRICT CLUSTERS

4

4

4

4

4

4

4

4

4

4

4

4

4 Sample districts

GORKHA

DHADING

RASUWA

NUWAKOT

KATHMANDU

SINDHUPALCHOK

BHAKTAPUR

DOLAKHA SOLUKHUMBU

SANKHUWASABHA

OKHALDHUNGA

TAPLEJUNG

TEHRATHUM

SYANGJA

BAGLUNG

MYAGDI

MUGU

DARCHULA

BAJHANG

BAJURA

NAWALPARASI

CHITWAN

PARSA

BARA

RAUTAHAT

SARLAHIMAHOTTARI

SAPTARI

DHANKUTA

PANCHTHAR

DOLPAJUMLADOTI KALIKOT

ACHHAM

DAILEKH JAJARKOT

SURKHETRUKUM

BARDIYA SALYAN

ROLPA

PARBATBANKE PYUTHAN

DANG

GULMI

ARGHAKHANCHITANAHU

PALPA

KAPILBASTURUPANDEHI

RAMECHHAPKAVRE

MAKWANPUR

LALITPUR

SINDHULI KHOTANG

ILAMDHANUSA

MORANGSUNSARIJHAPA

HUMLA

BAITADI

DADELDHURA

KANCHANPUR

KAILALI

MUSTANG

MANANG

KASKILAMJUNG

BHOJPUR

UDAYAPUR

SIRAHA

LegendCluster Names

Central mountain and hillsEastern hills with cash cropsEastern mountain and hillsEastern Siwalik regionFar and mid western TeraiFar eastern TeraiFar western hillFar western mountainFlood prone eastern and central TeraiKarnali transhimalaya (mountains)Kathmandu and Pokhara valleysMid western hillMountain tourist districtsNorth western hillsSouth western hillsWestern Terai

Map 2.1: District Clusters and Sample Districts

Table 2.1Sampled Districts and Communities by District Cluster

District Clusters District Clusters and Sampled Districts No. of Communities1.Eastern mountain and hills Taplejung, Sankhuwasabha, Dhankutta,

Bhojpur, Khotang and Okhaldhunga4

2. Eastern hills with cash crops Terhathum, Panchthar and Ilam 33. Eastern Terai Jhapa, Morang and Sunsari 44. Mountain tourist districts Solukhumbu, Dolakha, Manang & Mustang 3 + 35. Eastern Siwalik region Udayapur, Sindhuli and Makawanpur 36. Flood prone east & centralTerai

Saptari, Siraha, Dhanusa, Mahottari, Sarlahi,Rautahat and Bara; Parsa and Chitwan

4 +3

7. Central mountain and hills Rasuwa, Sindhupalchok, Ramechhap, Kavre,Nuwakot and Dhading

3

8. North western hills Gorakha, Lamjung, Parbat, Baglung &Myagdi

3

9. South western hills Tanahu, Syanja, Palpa, Arghakhanchi,Gulmi and Pyuthan

4

10. Western Terai Nawalparasi, Rupandehi and Kapilvastu 4

11. Karnali Transhimalayanregion

Dolpa, Mugu, Humla, Jumla and Kalikot 4 + 3

12. Mid western hills Rolpa, Rukum, Salyan, Jajarkot, Surkhet andDailekh

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13. Far-Western mountain Bajura, Bajhang and Darchula 314. Far-Western hills Achham, Doti, Baitadi and Dadeldhura 415. Mid- and Far-Western Terai Dang, Banke and Bardiya ; Kailali and

Kanchanpur3 + 3

16. Kathmandu & Pokhara valley Bhaktapur, Lalitpur, Kathmandu and Kaski 0Total 75 (19) 65

Note: The district(s) printed in italic indicate the sampled district(s) from a district cluster.


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All the households of a sample community were grouped into four groups by the people ofthe community after sharing the concept of food security with them (see Section 4.1, ChapterIV). The two groups who were not able to fulfil their food needs on their own were treated asfood insecure groups, and were further reorganised in two to five nearly homogeneous groupsbased on the characteristics like access to land, livestock, wage labour or other characteristics.Such regrouping was done in order to facilitate focus group discussions (FGDs) with them so asto prepare their profile. Thus, after regrouping the vulnerable households into preferably threegroups, the next set of instruments were used for collecting detailed information about them.

Participatory method was used to collect information. The field survey was carried out by fourteams, each consisting of one Team Leader and two research assistants, during May throughAugust, 2000. The list of the members of field survey teams is given in Annex 1. Followingseven questionnaires/checklists were administered with key informants and focus groups of menand women for conducting the rapid assessment.

• Household listing module• Risk and Hazard time line• Resources and services• Seasonal calendar• Food security ranking of households• Women focus group discussion• Case study

Household listing module serves as an icebreaker, which enumerates some socio-economiccharacteristics of all the households of the selected vulnerable communities of a district. The riskand hazard timeline collects information on the risks and hazards, their impact and the copingmechanisms used for mitigating those impacts. The third community instrument deals with theaccess of the community to different infrastructure and services, and community level problemsand opportunities. Seasonal calendar collects information on some of the variables includingprice of food crops and their level of consumption for the 12 months of a year.

After the listing of households, food security ranking exercise was performed where all thehouseholds of a community were ranked into four groups based on the criteria of access to food.In order to see the gender relation, women FGD was performed on control and access to assetsand schooling of children. Finally, a case study of a food insecure and vulnerable householddepicting the situation of the vulnerability of the sampled community was performed. With thecompletion of the community level questionnaires, group level questionnaires were administeredamong the food insecure groups which depict their income, assets and level of consumption innormal and abnormal years. There were two group level questionnaires: one for activities andincome and the other for the production and expenditure.

2.3 LIMITATION OF THE ASSESSMENT

The assessment collected both the quantitative and qualitative data. Collection of qualitative datawas done following participatory methods. Strict probability sampling technique was not used forsampling districts or communities. In view of this, the national estimates may not be that robustfor estimating the parameters such as the proportion of food insecure and vulnerable householdsin Nepal. However, they give the intensity, variation and direction of the food security andvulnerability problem, and provides critical information regarding the characteristics of mostvulnerable households in Nepal, those that is of crucial importance for the WFP/Nepal for itsProgramme targeting.


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CHPATER III

FOOD SECURITY AND VULNERABILITY STATUS IN NEPAL: AN OVERVIEW

3.1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter gives an overview of food security and vulnerability situation of the country. Theoverview is guided by a theoretical framework, and review of the studies and the activitiespreceding the profiling of the vulnerable groups at WFP/Nepal. Besides, at times drawingupon the secondary data it adds further to the findings of the other previous studies conductedin WFP/Nepal.

3.2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Vulnerability

Vulnerability is defined as the probability of an acute decline in food access, or consumptionlevels. According to Chambers (1989), vulnerability represents defencelessness, insecurityand exposure to risks, shocks and stress … and difficulty in coping with them. In order tosustain, a household has to cope with all the hazards and risks that it has to confront. In thisconstant battle against risks, the level of success depends on the level of the entitlement. Thus,vulnerability has two components:

Vulnerability = Exposure to Risk + Inability to Cope

According to this definition, the acute fluctuations in consumption that are the primaryconcern in vulnerability analysis are the result of an inability to cope with the variety of riskswhich may affect households access to food. The opposite way of examining vulnerability islivelihood security. Blakie et al (1994) have defined livelihood as the command anindividual, family, or other social group has over an income and/or bundles of resources thatcan be used or exchanged to satisfy its needs. Thus, livelihood of household is defined by itshousehold level entitlement. In other words, household livelihood security impliessustainable, adequate access to income and resources to meet basic needs. It consists ofnutritional security, health security, food security, education security and economic securityamong others. Thus, food and nutritional security are subsets of livelihood security.Livelihoods are secure when households have secure ownership of, or access to, resourcesand income earning activity, including reserve and assets, to offset risks, ease shocks, andmeet contingencies. The greater the share of resources devoted to food and health serviceacquisition, the higher the vulnerability of the household to food and nutritional insecurity.

Food Security

Food security has been a consistent theme raised in specific contexts in a number of worldconferences convened by the United Nations in the 1990s. The concept of food security asunderstood now has been evolved over the last quarter century. Food security concept hasbeen considered at a number of levels: global, regional, national, household and individual.

FAO (1983) had formulated that the basic concept of food security implied that “all people atall times have both physical and economic access to the basic food that they need”. TheWorld Bank (1986) has modified this formulation to indicate that food security is “access byall people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life”. Its essential elements are theavailability of food and the ability to acquire it. The World Bank has made a distinctionbetween chronic and transitory food insecurities. Chronic food insecurity reflects continuous“inadequate diet caused by the inability to acquire food. It affects households that persistently


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In its wider sense, food security incorporateswhat is often referred in quality of lifeindicators. Accordingly, food security implieslivelihood security at the level of eachhousehold and all members within, andinvolves ensuring both physical and economicaccess to balanced diet, safe drinking water,environmental sanitation, primary education,and basic health care. Above all, food securitydepends upon available income, consumer’sfood habits and the cost faced by consumers inaccessing food in hygienic condition.

lack the ability to either buy food or to produce their own.” The transitory food insecurity isdefined as “ a temporary decline in the household’s access to enough food. It results frominstability in food prices, food production and household income- and in its worst form, itproduces famine”. The World Bank definition has the following components:

i) Availability of FoodThe precondition of the access to food is the availability of food surrounding the people.Without the food available nearby, the people cannot obtain food. This is more important in acountry like Nepal with rugged topography and lack of market.

ii) Access to FoodPhysical availability of food is a necessary but not sufficient condition for ending hunger.People require assured access to food. The route to that access may consist of income or workopportunities or the ability to acquire food through production, exchange, or socialentitlement programmes.

iii) Access to Food by All PeopleFood security at the national or regional level does not necessarily indicate food security atthe local or personal level. Often there is great disparity in food security among regions,communities, households and individuals. The ultimate end of food security boils down to thehousehold level and then at the individual level.

iv) Access to Food at All TimesTransitory food insecurity can transform into chronic food insecurity. Civil and externalconflicts as well as natural disasters seriously disrupt food production, orderly marketing andstewardship of food reserves. Thus, there is need for conflict reduction and resolution andsupport disaster preparedness and mitigation activities so as to lessen the incidence of eventhe transitory food insecurity.

v) Access to Enough Food for an Active , Healthy LifeFood security means that individuals andhouseholds have access to sufficient foodboth in quantity and quality to meet theirnutritional requirements. However, adequatefood supply is not the only condition forensuring an active and healthy life. Unlessthere are access to proper health care, watersupply and other basic services; adequateamount of food intake by the individualmembers; and equal distribution of foodamong the women and men and among thegirl and boy children of family, the food willnot be efficiently utilised.

In summary, the components outlined above clearly indicate four dimensions of food security,viz., availability, access and utilisation, and then vulnerability (Figure 3.1). Availabilitygenerally refers to production and physical availability of food in a given area. Access refersto economic access to food, i.e., the purchasing power of the people concerned, and utilisationrefers proper use of food commanded by a household and its members from their entitlement.Food availability is a community level concern, its access is a household level concern and itsutilisation is an individual level concern. Related to the three dimensions of the food securityis the another dimension, the Vulnerability, which refers to a range of external factors andrisks that expose people to food insecurity across the other three dimensions. There are


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Figure 3.2: Cereal Production and Net Import of Rice, 1970-98 (MT)

-1000000

0

1000000

2000000

3000000

4000000

5000000

6000000

1970

Rice Cereal Production (MT)

PRODUCTION

Food productionFood importsMarket integration

ENVIRONMENTALRISKS

Climatic ShockPestsNatural resourcedegradationLoss of productive asset

MARKET &ENTITLEMENT RISKS

Economic ShocksDeteriorating Terms ofTradeCollapse of Safety NetsPrice Hikes

NUTRITION &HEALTH RISKS

EpidemicsErosion of Social Services

Figure 3.1: Dimensions of Food Insecurity

AVAILABILITY ACCESS UTILIZATION

INCOME

Purchasing powerSocial Safety netsFood SubsidiesFfW SchemesCommunity support

CONSUMPTION

IntrahouseholdDistributionDietary PracticesNutrition KnowledgeSupplemntaryfeedingChild care

ABSORPTION

HealthSanitationSafe WaterFood QualityMicro Nutrients

RESOURCES

NaturalPhysicalHuman

VULNERABILIY

various factors that determine the three dimensions of food security. These determinants arementioned in the Figure 3.1. Besides, the risk and hazards also create transitory foodinsecurity, and if they are more frequent then that result into chronic food insecurity, affectingthe three dimensions of the food security. Some of these risks in case of Nepal are mentionedin the following sections, based on the secondary information.

Source: WFP: 2000

3.3 AVAILABILITY OF FOOD

Availability of food depends on domestic production, net import of food and food aid, amongothers. The population dimension is also important which determines whether the availablefood is sufficient or not in a agricultural country.

Domestic Food Production

Shakya and Singh (2000) estimated annual growth rate of area, production and productivity ofsix food crops: rice, maize, wheat, barley, millet and potato, and three cash crops: sugarcane,oilseeds and tobacco during 1978/79 to 1997/98. The annual increase of production of paddy,maize and wheat was 2.5, 4.0, and 5.9 percent, respectively. But during the same period, thearea under these cropsincreased by 1.0, 3.8 and4.0 percent, respectively.As a result, the increase inyields was only 1.5 percentfor paddy, 0.2 percent formaize and 1.9 percent forwheat. This indicates thatwhatever gain has beenachieved in the agricultureis mainly the outcome ofthe increase in area ratherthan productivity. Among


13

The high growth rate of population has exertedpressure on whatever limited land available in thecountry and on forest resources, whose consequencesare high in terms of degrading the resource base andtherefore worsening the future generation due tounsustainable path of development. The naturalresource degradation has serious implication on foodgrain productivity, and therefore food security.

Figure 3.3 : Dietry Energy Supply, 1970-98 (kcl/person/day)

0500

10001500200025003000

1970

1972

1974

1976

1978

1980

1982

1984

1986

1988

1990

1992

1994

1996

1998

the other three crops, barley increased by 1 percent and potato by 2.6 percent whereas that ofmillet was negligible. As to the cash crops, the noticeable yield increase was of sugarcane byone percent whereas that of oilseed and tobacco was negligible (0.2%).

Figure 3.2 shows the cereal production with ups and downs, and the rapid increase in theproduction after the mid-eighties. But the increase in the cereal production is coupled with theincrease in the import of the rice since then, reflecting a rapid increase in the growth of thepopulation, among the others. A detail analysis of the import of the food crops appears in thefollowing section.

Population

Nepal’s population more than quadrupled during past nine decades, from 5.6 million in 1911to 23 million currently, with successively higher growth rates in the latter than the formerdecades. The population increase was only 0.7 million in the 30 years between 1911 to 1941,but jumped by nine million in the past 30 years from 9.4 million in 1961 to 18.4 million in1991. According to the 1991 population census, the growth rate was 2.1, and at this rate it willtake only 33 years to double the population. The high fertility rate leading to high growth ratehas increased the proportion of the younger population from 40.4 percent in 1971 to 42.4percent in 1991. The rapid growth ofpopulation is a result of unbalanceddistribution of population, haphazardurbanisation, increasing migration,high fertility and gradually decliningmortality. The mountain and hilltogether comprising 77 percent of thearea hold only a little above half of thepopulation, whereas the other half isborne by the Terai with only 23percent of area.

The slow increase in the cerealproduction coupled with rapidincrease in the populationyield a per caput cereal thathovers around 2000 Kcal up to1987, and beyond then there isincrease in the per capita foodavailability (Figure 3.3), whichcould be due to increase in theimports of food commodities(Figure 3.4). However, thisdoes not mean an improvedaccess to food or properutilisation of food. Moreover,Figure 3.3 also does not entail an improve in the per capita food availability by regions of thecountry. Of course, there are significant regional variations, with lower per capita availabilityin mountain than Terai.

One of the reasons for the operation of Nepal Food Corporation in Nepal is making foodavailable in the remote districts of Nepal. Without NFC's presence, life is difficult in manyremote districts of Nepal which is evident from the long queue waiting for getting a littleamount of foodgrain in such remote districts. There is evidence which shows that because of


14

Figure 3.4: Net Imports of Food Commodities, 1970-98 (MT)

- 3 5 0 0 0 0

- 3 0 0 0 0 0

- 2 5 0 0 0 0

- 2 0 0 0 0 0

- 1 5 0 0 0 0

- 1 0 0 0 0 0

- 5 0 0 0 0

0

5 0 0 0 0

1 0 0 0 0 0

1 9 7 0

1 9 7 2

1 9 7 4

1 9 7 6

1 9 7 8

1 9 8 0

1 9 8 2

1 9 8 4

1 9 8 6

1 9 8 8

1 9 9 0

1 9 9 2

1 9 9 4

1 9 9 6

1 9 9 8

R i c e W h e a t P u l s e Veg . Oi l

Table 3.1 Foodgrain Balance by Ecological Zone in Nepal, 1996/97

Zone District Production(MT)

Requirement(MT)

Balance(MT)

Districts-/+

MountainHillTeraiNepal

16392075

179,8671,548,4692,244,2513,972,587

310,0901,933,7461,835,2994,079,135

-130,223-385,277+408,952-106,548

-16/0-26/+13-3/+17-45/+30

Source: Shakya and Singh, 2000

the lack of food, every year people die in the remote mountain districts . For example,diarrhoea and cholera and the lack of food claimed the death of as many as 350 people inHumla district in 1998 (Adhikari: 2000).

Export and Import of Food

Until 1970s, agricultural exports had a large share in the total foreign exchange earnings.These began to decline and by the 1990s Nepal's trade balance went negative. In spite of thefree and porous border, the border price of cereals is higher in Nepal than India, reflectingfood shortage in the country. Excluding pulses, import of all the other major food cropsincreased in the latter years of the period 1970-98. There is steady increase in the net importof vegetables oil as compared to the other’s. But there is a wide fluctuation in the import ofthe rice which was earlier negative, implying a higher export than its import (Figure 3.4).

Foodgrain Balance

DFAMS/HMGNtrack records of the10 principal crops:five food crops,namely, paddy,maize, wheat,millet and barley;and five cash crops,sugarcane,oilseeds, tobacco,jute and potato. The FAO balance sheet for Nepal looks at food production estimates of these10 crops. According to this, Nepal became a food deficit country before the decade of 1990.The amount of food deficit reached to the tune of 106,548 MT. Per capita availability of


15

Figure 3.5: PPP Income by Sub-Region, 1996 (US$)

0 200 400 600 800 1,000 1,200 1,400 1,600 1,800 2,000

East Mountain

Central Mountain

West Mountain

Mid-West Mountain

Far-West Mountain

East Hill

Central Hill

West Hill

Mid-West Hill

Far-West Hill

East Terai

Central Terai

West Terai

Mid-West Terai

Far-West Terai

Nepal

edible cereals was 189 kg in 1991, which dropped to 175 kg in 1997. At present 45 out of 75districts are food deficit (Table 3.1).

3.4 ACCESS TO FOOD

Access to food is governed by the entitlements of households. Sources of entitlement areproductive capital, non-productive capital, human capital, income and claims. Of all thesources, land is still main source of entitlement in a country like Nepal where more than 80percent of the population are engaged in agriculture and living mostly in rural parts of thecountry. The phase-wise implementation of Land Reform Act 1964 could not appropriate allthe surplus land above the ceiling and therefore there is still unequal distribution of land. Thedistribution of assets and income is governed by the socio-economic structure of the country.The deep-rooted structure has created unequal distribution of income and assets in thecountry. Thus, the food access is not that better in the country, unless the income andemployment opportunities of the poor people are enhanced.

Poverty and Per CapitaIncome

Per capita income inNepal was estimated atNRs 7,673 in 1996. Thiswidely differs across thedifferent sub-regions ofthe country, ranging fromNRs 4,195 in Far-westernMountain and NRs 4,981in Mid-western Mountainto 12,103 in Central Hill.The per capita income inall the five sub-region ofthe mountain falls short ofthe national average.Excluding Central andWestern hills and EasternTerai, the per capita in allother sub-regions of thehills and the Terai is lessthan that of the country(Figure 3.5). Thus, in terms of economic condition, the central hill and the Eastern Teraiexcels over the other regions of the country, but this does not mean that there are no foodinsecure people in these regions as it depends on the distribution of income.

Overall, 42 percent of the population is below poverty line, with wide differences betweenregions and areas. The incidence of poverty is 44 percent in rural areas against 23 percent inurban areas. It is 56, 41 and 42 percents in Mountain, Hill and Terai region, respectively.

Remittance is important source of income for majority of population, particularly those oflow-income brackets. About 23 per cent of households receive remittances from within andoutside the country. Relatively higher proportion of households (31%) from the WesternDevelopment region of the country depends on remittances. India is the main source ofremittances contributing more than 38 percent of the total amount at the national level. Theshare of remittances constitutes about 27 per cent of average household income. Percentage of


16

wage earner is relatively higher in non-agricultural sector (67%) as compared to theagricultural sector in the hills of Nepal. About 24 per cent of households were engaged innon-farm activities such as non-manufacturing, trade and services (Shakya and Singh, 2000).Figure 3.6 shows the varying contribution of agriculture to total income in the high hillcommunity of three districts, ranging from 38 percent in Bajhang to 65 percent inMakawanpur. The income from seasonal and permanent migration ranges from 15 inMakawanpur to as high as 45 percent in Achham.

Source: Shakya and Singh (2000)

3.5 UTILISATION OF FOOD

Utilisation of food refers the use of food which a family has access to. It has threedimensions: a) Utilisation of food by the family; b) utilisation of food by the individuals in afamily; and c) Health and nutrition status of the individual members of the family, with aspecial focus on women and children as they are more disadvantaged and vulnerable groups.

Utilisation of food by the family implies hygiene and housing conditions for storing, cooking,and preparing food. Utilisation of food by the individual depends on the food intake of theindividual members of the family. The health and nutritional status of individual members ismeasured by the prevalence of clinical symptoms among the family members and theiranthropometric measurement.

Thus, proper utilisation of food also depends on many factors. There is uneven distribution offood among the family members, generally females are relegated behind males especially innon-Aryan families in Nepal. The extended entitlement of household heads and other ablebodied workers that have to work outside home, who are generally male, also result into theuneven distribution of income and entitlement leading to intra-household food insecurity.

Nutritional Status of Children

NFHS data has been used here to depict the nutritional status of children and women.2 NepalFamily Health Survey 1996 estimated stunting 38 percent in eastern development region to 53

2 There are three anthropometric indices of nutritional status: a) height-for-age, b) weight-for-height, and c)weight-for-age. They measure stunting, wasting and under-weight reflecting chronic, acute and generalmalnutrition, respectively. Anthropometric measurements were performed by Nepal Multiple IndicatorSurveillance (NMIS) in 1995 and 1996, and the Nepal Family Health Survey (NFHS) 1996. Both surveys weredesigned to provide regional and sub-regional level estimates. Besides, NMIS also provides district level estimatesfor few districts. While NMIS provides nutritional status of children aged 6-36 months, the NFHS provides bothfor the children ages 036 months and women. There NFHS data has been used here to depict the nutritional status.

Makwanpur (High Hill Community) Bajhang (High Hill Community) Achham (High Hill Community)

Fig : 3.6 Contribution of Different Sources to Total Income

Agriculture65%

LiveStock15%

Service/Business/

Trade/ Wage labour

5%

Seasonal Migration

15%

Agriculture38%

Long Term Migration

3%Seasonal Migration

23%

Service/ Business/

Trade/ Wage labour31%

LiveStock5%

4

LiveStock3%

Agriculture40%

Long Term Migration

15%

Seasonal Migration

30%

Service/ Business/

Trade/ Wage labour12%


17

Figure 3.7: Under Weight among 6-36 Months Children (Weight-for-Age(<-2SD))

0 20 40 60 80

East Mountain

Central Mountain

West Mountain

East Hill

Central Hill

West Hill

Mid-West Hill

Far-West Hill

East Terai

Central Terai

West Terai

Mid-West Terai

Far-West Terai

Nepal

Figure 3.8: Mean BMI among Women by Sub-Region Percent <18.5 (kg/m2)

0 10 20 30 40 50

East Mountain

Central Mountain

West Mountain

Eastern Hill

Central Hill

West Hill

Mid-West Hill

Far-West Hill

East Terai

Central Terai

West Terai

Mid-West Terai

Far West Terai

Nepal

percent in far-western development region among the children 0-35 months. At national level,the proportion of stunted children stands at 48 percent and wasted children at 11 percent.Figure 3.7 shows the proportion of under-weight children (weight-for-age) under three yearsof age classified as malnourished for the 13 sub-regions instead of 15 sub-regions as the mid-and far-west mountain are combined with the west mountain sub-region. Thus, the westmountain refers to the estimate of such proportion for all the three mountain sub-regions, viz.,west, mid and far-west mountains.These proportions are expressedbelow two standard deviationsfrom the median of the referencepopulation. The proportion of theunderweight children in Nepal is47 percent. By sub-regions thereis wide differences in the under-weight children.

The highest proportion ofunderweight children is measuredin Western mountain (67.4%), andthe lowest in Eastern Mountain(34.3%). This indicates that thereis wide difference in theproportion of the generalmalnutrition even among the sameecological belt, i.e. mountainregion of the country. In the hill itis lowest in the Eastern hill andincreases as one goes to Westernhill and ultimately it reaches ashigh as 65 percent in the Far-Western hills. However, such aconsistent pattern does not holdin case of the Terai. The Lowestproportion of underweightchildren are in the Eastern Terai,but higher proportion of suchchildren is in the middle andwestern part of the Terai ratherthan Mid west and Far-Westernpart of the Terai.

In summary, all the three indicesof malnutrition increase fromeast to west in the mountain andthe hills, but not in the Terai.The Terai does not show aconsistent pattern.

Nutritional Status of Mothers

The height below which awoman is considered to be atnutritional risk is in the range of


18

Figure 3.9: Population without Access to Safe Water and Health Service by Sub-Region (%)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

East M

ounta

in

Centra

l Mou

ntain

Wes

t Mou

ntain

Easter

n Hill

Centra

l Hill

Wes

t Hill

Mid-W

est H

ill

Far-W

est H

ill

East T

erai

Centra

l Tera

i

Wes

t Tera

i

Mid-W

est T

erai

Far W

est T

erai

Nepal

Safe Water (%) Access to Health Service (%)

140-150 centimetres. The mean in the 1996 NFHS was found 150 cm, with 15 percent ofwomen less than 145 cm.3 The mean BMI among women who had a birth in the three yearspreceding the survey in Nepal is 19.8. One of four women in Nepal falls below the cut-off,indicating that the level of chronic energy deficiency in Nepal is relatively high. 4

The BMI found less than 18.5 in six of the 13 sub-regions, viz, all the three sub-regions of themountain, and from eastern to western hill of the hills. But in all of the five sub-regions of theTerai it is above the cut-off, showing better situation of women in Terai than in the hills or themountain (Figure 3.8).

Access to Water and Health Services

Overall, still one third of the population have no access to safe water in Nepal (NHDR:1998).This access varies widely across regions, ranging from 12 percent in Far Western Terai to ashigh as 73 percent in the Mid-Western hills. Lack of access to safe water is of serious concernin Western mountain, and Eastern and Mid-Western hills as compared to the other sub-

regions of the country. Accessibility of safe water is higher in Terai as compared to the hillsand the mountain, and again within Terai, the situation is better in the Central, Western andFar Western Terai. Coming to the access to the health services, the situation is worse in mostof the sub-regions. The only sub-regions where access to health services is better in Centralmountain and hill, and Eastern Terai. The proportion of population without access to healthservices ranges from 30% in Eastern Terai to as high as 84% in the Eastern hills (Figure 3.9).

3.6 VULNERABILITYEnvironmental RisksNepal has been facing disasters that cause loss of life and property annually. Major disastersthat affect Nepalese economy are flood, landslide, drought, epidemic, earthquake, fire,avalanche, thunderbolt, windstorm, and hailstorm. Among these, flood and landslide are the

3 The analysis of nutritional status of mothers is based on women who had a live birth in the three years precedingthe survey, and therefore is not representative of the entire universe of the 15-49 years women. The basic measuresused to assess maternal nutrition are height and weight of women and the Body Mass Index, which is an indicatorthat combines both height and weight data.

4 The BMI, which utilizes both height and weight and provides a better measure of thinness than weight alone, isdefined as weight in kg divided by the square of height in meters. For the BMI, a cut-off of 18.5 has beenrecommended for indicating chronic energy deficiency among non-pregnant women.


19

major disasters that cause loss of life, livestock, cropland and properties. In the case of humanlife loss, epidemic appeared as the major disaster during the last decade and it is followed byflood and landslide, wind storm/ thunderbolt/hailstorm and fire, respectively (CBS: 1998).The country has also the fear of seismic activities. In 1988, earthquake appeared as the majordisaster that affected 66, 000 families. As the Himalayas are relatively young mountains, theyare prone to landslides in the event of a seismic event, especially during the certain seasons ofthe year when the water content of the sol results into ‘liquefaction’ (Perry: 2000). Besides,fire is the most common event that occurs in many parts of the country. Northern belt ofNepal is mostly covered with high snow-capped mountains including the highest peak of theworld, where avalanche is a common phenomenon. The impact of this was observed in fivedistricts during 1995 but only one district in 1996.

Deforestation and devegetation, heavy and localised rainfall due to monsoon stimulateoccurrences of flood and landslides which affected as high as 71 districts in 2000. The rainfallof Nepal is characterised by high variability both in terms of the location and time. This ismainly because most of the rain the country receives during the monsoon which extends fromthe mid-June to mid-September. The mean annual precipitation is about 1,500 mm varyingsignificantly according to location. Generally, more than 80 percent precipitation isexperienced during monsoon. The cyclical trend of the monsoon and lack of ensuredirrigation facility serves as impediment of the sustained growth of Nepal, which still dependson the development of the agriculture sector. Thus, majority of the population survival is tiedup with the vagaries of monsoon, leading them more vulnerable. Fire is one of the majordisasters that appear all over the country causing a great loss of foodgrains and otherproperties and therefore it has serious implication to food security. It affected 72 and 67districts in 1995 and 1996, respectively.

It is estimated that about 650,000 people are affected each year by drought, floods andlandslides in Nepal (WFP: 2000). There is lack of data showing the effects of these disasters.Whatever data is available show the number of families affected or the amount of themonetary loss from the natural disasters due to floods and landslides. Map 3.1 is based on theaverage number of families affected due to floods and landslides during 1995-2000. Thegreater incidence is in flood-prone Eastern and Central Terai districts.

VAM Unit, WFP, Nepal, NovemberSource: Ministry of Home (Years 1995-2000)

Note: Calculated formula= Average family affected during years 1995 to 2000 X Household size (national average) X 1000 / population

Map 3.1: Family affected due to flood and landslides

DHADINUWAK

KATHMAN

CHITW

RASU

GORKBAGLU

PANCHTH

DHANKU

TEHRATH

UDAYAP

SINDH

SARLAMAHOTT

RAMECH

BAJU

DARCHU

MUG

SYANG

NAWALPAR

PAR

RAUTAH

DOLAK

SOLUKHUSANKHUWASA

SAPTA MORA

TAPLEJU

DOLJUMDO KALIK

ACHH

DAILE JAJARK

SURKH RUKU

BARDI SALYROL

PARBBAN PYUTH

DANGUL

SINDHUPALCARGHAKHA TANA

PAL

KAPILBASRUPAND KAV

BHAKTAP

MAKWANLALITP

OKHALDHU

KHOTABAR

ILADHANU

SUNSAJHA

HUM

BAJHA

BAITA

DADELDH

KANCHAN

KAILA

MUSTA

MANA

MYAG

KASLAMJU

BHOJP

SIRA

Legend

High (58 toMedium (19.2 toLow (4.2 toVery Low (0.1 to


20

Economic Risks

Economic risks are also of primary concern in Nepal where there are frequent changes ingovernment polices and programmes, and in the prices of commodities due to the open borderwith India and lack of well developed market and other infrastructure. Moreover, because oflack of storage, access to infrastructure and other facilities, the prices are volatile. Thephysical inaccessibility to most parts of the country is further aggravated during the monsoonwhen there is heavy rain prohibiting smooth transportation of good and services due tolandslides and floods. Variation in price has greater effects on the lives of the poor peoplewho lack sufficient entitlements to mitigate those effects.

Some of the changes in the polices as a result of structural adjustment, privatisation andderegulation and removal of subsidies resulted into increase in the prices of basic necessitiesand inputs which have limited the capacity of farmers to mitigate the effects of other risks astheir productive base is limited and income sources are less diversified.

The demand for the agricultural commodities is relatively inelastic, whereas its supply isvolatile because production and supply of agricultural commodities depend on the vagaries ofmonsoon. In a year with favourable monsoon, the poor farmers do not get proper prices oftheir produce because the prices are low and because they have to sell their crops even duringthe low price season such as in the harvesting season. On the other hand, when there isunfavourable monsoon, poor farmers lack adequate food and therefore are marred with highprices of foodgrains. This makes them live in ups and down and hardly gives an opportunityto plan for a long run, and create assets so as to fight against risks in the future.

Social and Political Risks

Civil unrest in Nepal began in the early 1990s when the Maoist faction of the NepalCommunist Party went underground and turned violent. The escalating violence hascompromised household food security in many parts of the Northwest as roads have beenblocked, public services have been disrupted, and investments have been dwindled (Citedfrom WFP: 2000).5Its effect is higher in the hill districts, especially in the Mid-West hill.After the restoration of democracy in the country, civil strife and social unrest are onincreasing trend. This has also created uncertainty and fear among the people. There is alsoeconomic loss because of the withdrawal of activities by INGOs and NGOs and apathy of thegovernment staff to discharge their responsibilities. Moreover, the loss of human life createdfear among the people. Mass exodus of people to cities for security reason resulted intodecrease in the economic activities in the rural parts of the country.

In the late 1980s, policies of the Royal Government of Bhutan resulted into the mass exodusof Nepalese-speaking residents who ended up taking the status of refugees in Nepal. There aremore than 100,000 refugees living in UNHCR-run refugee camps in the eastern parts of Nepalwhich has created social problems in the area. However, the current ministerial level talkbetween the two countries and the subsequent steps taken for the verification of the people inthe camps could solve the problem shortly after.

Within a 10 year period of democracy, there is frequent change in the governments, top levelgovernment officials, and as a result there is frequent change in the polices of the government.This has resulted into uncertainty among the people.

5 Since early 1996 rural political insurgency has resulted in the deaths of over 1,000 people. Because of thepotential for violence fifteen districts have been most affected and the estimated 1997-98 population of thesedistricts is 3.4 million (WFP:2000)


21

Health Hazards

Diarrhoea, acute respiratory infection, and worms are common in Nepal. They show theirugly heads among the poor, and they claim deaths of children and infants every year. Thesediseases are mainly the outcomes of the lack of safe drinking water and poor hygiene andsanitation at personal, domestic and community level. Lack of awareness of these diseasesamong the community people make them further suffer from these diseases. Besides, someepidemics like cholera, measles outburst and claim the lives of the people. They makefamilies further vulnerable by affecting human and productive capital, and thereby adverselyaffecting the capacity of people to mitigate other types of risk and hazards.

Animal and Plant Diseases

Animal husbandry serves as a cushion for mitigating the effects of disasters, and is productivecapital that helps generate further production and income especially in the agriculture sector.The outbreak of various animal diseases such as diphtheria kills many animals and lack ofanimal insurance results into great loss of the people’s productive assets and erode their futurecapacity to mitigate the effect of the other natural disasters. There are new plant diseases thatloss crops significantly in some year.

3.7 COPING STRATEGIES

If timely support is not provided through programme intervention, exposure to multiple risksand lagged effect of the recurring risks can lead households down to an ever-deepening spiralof vulnerability. Therefore, an understanding of coping strategies is important in theformulation of policies to fight against food insecurity and vulnerability. How families adjustto a situation of food insecurity depends greatly on their assessment of how long the situationwill last. In Nepal traditional social systems have evolved, partly, to cushion short termshocks. A family’s coping strategy therefore can be categorised in relation to socialrelationship and time. The system of extended family, community neighbours, patron andclient relationship such as landlord-tenant, landlord-contract labour help mitigate the shortterm crises. During a long term crisis, diversification of occupation, out-migration such asseasonal migration are the most frequent strategies (Perry:2000; Shakya and Singh: 2000).

3.8 SUMMARY

This section summarises mainly the findings of the preceding analysis and those of the issuepaper as follows:

Compared to population growth, there is not significant increase in agricultural productivity.Whatever increase in the agricultural production has occurred is primarily the result ofacreage expansion rather than productivity gains. Although there is some increase in thecereal production after mid-eighties, there is no decrease in the import of rice, and the countryturned to food deficit. This is mainly because of the rapid growth of population. However, percapita cereal production hovers around 2000 kcal during 1970-87, and then beyond there issomewhat increase. However, this does not mean improved access to food or the properutilisation of food across all the sub-regions of the country.

Agriculture exports had a large share in the total foreign exchange earnings until 1970s. Thesebegan to decline and by 1990s, Nepal’s trade balance went negative. Excluding pulses, theimport of all other major food crops increased in the latter years of the period 1970-98. Theamount of food deficit reached to the tune of 106,548 MT in 1996/97. Per capita availability


22

of edible cereal was 189 kg in 1991 which dropped to 175 kg in 1997. Out of 75 districts, 45districts are food deficit.

Lack of employment and income opportunities is the major problem constraining the capacityof the people for the improved economic access to food. Per capita income in Nepal wasestimated at NRs 7,673 in 1996, ranging from NRs 4,195 in Far-West mountain and NRs4,981in Mid-West Mountain to 12,103 in Central Hill. The poverty rate is 56, 41 and 42percent in mountain, hill and Terai, respectively. This together with the lack of physicalavailability of food in the mountain and remote districts has resulted into famine andstarvation in those districts. In many parts of Nepal nutritional problems are more closelyassociated with the shortage of income than to the shortage of the food. Remittances areimportant source of income for majority of population, particularly for those of low incomebrackets. The contribution of agriculture to total income is decreasing, whereas that ofmigration is increasing. But this situation differs by districts.

Around 50 percent of children are underweight. The proportion of underweight childrenincreases as one moves from east to west part of the mountain and hill, but this does not holdin Terai. In Terai, the proportion is higher in the mid and the western parts. The nutritionalstatus of women in Terai is better than that of the hill and mountain. Overall, one of the fourwomen has chronic energy deficiency as measured by the BMI in 1996, NFHS. Lack ofproper utilisation of food is evident in the family because of the gender differences derivingfrom the differences between the men and women in entitlements and opportunities, andbecause of the micro-nutrient deficiencies.

The important natural disasters in Nepal are floods and landslides, and drought which cause asignificant loss of life and properties. Social, economic and political risks have also been inrising trend. Diarrhoea, ARI and worms are common in Nepal. Their effect is higher on thepoor families, children and women, and they claim death of children and infants every year.Shakya and Singh (1990) mentions that the status of food security varies by regions and belts,by gender, caste/ethnicity and by size of holding. The size of land holding is not sufficient tomeet the basic food need of the majority of the farm households. Occupational caste in thehills, and Chamar, Dhanuk, Dusadh, Musahar, Kewat, Mallah and Tharu are among others ofthe Terai who are food insecure and vulnerable. The extreme form of bonded labour used tocall as Kamaiya before the abrogation of Kamaiya system in July 2000, of five Mid- and Far-West Terai are food insecure and vulnerable. Mid-and Far-West regions lag behind the otherregions of the country. These two regions have lower per capita income, higher poverty, andlower per capita food availability than the other regions. Mountain belt is inaccessible andlack basic services and infrastructure even marketing and transportation facilities, and is themost backward region, and therefore availability of food is the prime concern of this region.

The government has adopted various policies and programmes to address the situation of foodsecurity. Agriculture Perspective Plan and the ninth plan have major focus on povertyalleviation in general. However, there are gaps in knowledge and weaknesses at variouslevels. HMGN is in the process of formulating Interim Poverty Reduction Strategies whichwill be implemented wit the start of the tenth five-year plan starting from July, 2002.


23

CHAPTER IV

FOOD SECURITY AND VULNERABILITY IN NEPAL

4.1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter is based on two checklists/modules: a) the household listing module which listedhouseholds of a selected community and collected some quantitative information on somebasic socio-economic indicators; and b) food security ranking module that ranked householdsin four groups. The ranking of households in the four groups has been done sharing thefollowing definition of food security with the community people.

Definition of the Four Groups of Households

Group DefinitionA Households who can obtain sufficient food for themselves in normal

times without assistance (gifts/loans) and who are able to provideassistance (gifts/loans) to others.

B Households who can obtain sufficient food for themselves in normaltimes without assistance (gifts/loans), but who are not able toprovide assistance to others.

C Households who can obtain sufficient food for themselves in normaltimes, but only with assistance (gifts/loans) from others (includingfood aid).

D Households who cannot obtain sufficient food for themselves innormal times, even with assistance (gifts/loan) from others (includingfood aid)

Based on the above definitional criteria each household was categorized into one of the fourgroups of the food security by the community people. The first two groups are considered asfood secure, whereas those falling in the last two groups are considered as food insecuregroups. Based on the quantitative information collected from the household listing modulestheir characteristics, especially those of the food insecure or the vulnerable households havebeen elaborated in the following sections.

4.2 WHERE ARE THE FOOD INSECURE AND VULNERABLE?

According to the self-evaluation of residents in the 65 communities/settlements included inthe Rapid Assessment for the National Food Security and Vulnerability Profile (FSVP),vulnerable households are, literally, everywhere in the country. The vulnerable settlements asidentified by the district level stakeholders are generally found with degraded naturalresources including soil resources, and were generally located at the top of mountain in hilland mountain regions, and in flood prone areas or at the bank of rivers in Terai region. Whilethe food security ranking methods used to elicit this evaluation are fraught with biases ininterpretation and perspective across communities, the wide range of responses illustrated inFigure 4.1 suggests, with some degree of certainty, a high degree of variability in foodsecurity conditions, even within relatively homogeneous district clusters.6 The range of

6 Note that the FSVP was based on purposive rather than probabilitysampling methods. As a result, generalizations based on aggregated resultsacross households are not strictly valid from a purely statisticalperspective and will be largely avoided. In some cases, aggregated resultswill be presented for illustrative purposes, as a means to summarize issues


24

estimates shown in the figure does not depict the prevalence but the intensity of foodinsecurity in a district cluster, however.

Overall, the range of the proportion of the food insecure households ranges from around 25percent to as high as more than 90 percent in the country. However, the median value of theproportion hovers around 60 percent in most of the district clusters. The only exceptions areEast Hill with Cash Crops, Flood-prone East and Central Terai and West Terai where theproportion is significantly higher (more than 70 percent). The reason for the higher proportionin the Terai district clusters is because most of the selected settlements were affected byfloods which has serious implication on their food security. In case of the East Hill with CashCrops, the higher proportion implies that even in the districts which are not that worse there ishigher proportion of food insecure households in their highly vulnerable settlements. Thisimplies that food insecure households are every where and that the intensity of food insecuritycould be higher in the most vulnerable settlements of even better off districts as well.

uncovered in qualitative discussions across settlements. Becausequantitative results are based largely on information from nearly allhouseholds within sampled settlements, information reported at theindividual settlement level can be considered valid in statistical terms.Comparative statements across settlements (or sets of settlements) aresimilarly valid, but, again, should not be over-generalized. At the sametime, the sample of 65 settlements is quite extensive for a PRA-basedassessment and should provide an accurate representation of the diversity ofconditions across Nepal, if not complete precision regarding specificmeasures.

Figure 4.1: Range of the Estimates of the Percent of Households as Food Insecure Households

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

East m

ounta

in an

d hill

East hi

ll with

cash

crops

East te

rai

Mou

ntain

touris

t distr

icts

East si

walik r

egion

Flood

-pron

e east

& ce

ntral

terai

Centra

l mou

ntain

and h

ill

North-w

est hi

ll

South

-west

hill

West

terai

Karnali

Transhi

malaya

Mid-

west hi

ll

Far-w

est m

ounta

in

Far-w

est hi

ll

Mid- an

d Far-

west te

rai Nepal

Minimum Maximum Median


25

These findings are not surprising. Even within Village Development Committees (VDCs),where individual settlements are often organised according to caste, ethnicity, or socio-economic status, a wide variation in the distribution of food insecurity should be expected.7

The broad disparity in self-reported levels of food insecurity within relatively homogeneousregional clusters suggests that greater efficiency and overall improved levels of programmecoverage might be obtained by the application of more rigorous targeting methods beyond thedistrict-level and down to the community-level. Indeed, where settlements within VDCs areorganised according to social or economic status, there is at least anecdotal evidence from theassessment that levels of vulnerability may vary widely across settlements within a singleVDC.

The FSVP was not intended directly to provide information to define the VDC or settlement-level criteria that might be used for targeting purposes. However, WFP/Nepal, in co-ordination with GTZ, has defined a separate methodology to achieve that aim.8 Annex 2provides a report of one such exercise in Sindhupalchok district. With better identification ofcommunities with a higher prevalence of food insecurity, even the random distribution ofbenefits within communities is more likely to reach truly needy households and individuals.

VAM/Nepal has already produced a regional vulnerability analysis that suggests foodinsecurity and vulnerability are likely to be more severe in the mid- and far-western mountainand hill districts, as well as the eastern mountains. While perhaps not as severe in aggregate,Figure 4.1 again suggests that pockets of high food insecurity and vulnerability remain inother areas of the hill and terai regions as well. Annex 3 provides an analysis of foodinsecurity and vulnerability that, while using separate methods and indicators, suggestssimilar broad geographic priorities.

Exposure to risk factors, including hailstorms, floods, and drought, combined with low levelsof human and economic resource reserves in much of the country also suggest particularvulnerability to acute declines in food access. The recent history of flood/landslide disastersis particularly high in the Eastern and Central Terai, which are otherwise only moderatelyfood insecure according to the other key outcome measures already mentioned.

4.3 WHO ARE THE FOOD INSECURE AND VULNERABLE?

Distinguishing Criteria

In contrast to the high variability in the degree of self-reported food insecurity acrosscommunities in Nepal, the characteristics that differentiate food secure from food insecurehouseholds, again as defined by community members themselves, is somewhat more uniformacross different settlements in the country (Table 4.1).

7 The disparity in findings across villages in the same districts could alsobe the result of differences in how the assessment tools were interpreted bydifferent assessment teams. However, it is usually the case that assessmentteams were assigned to cover entire district and district clusters, implyingthat the assessment was implemented somewhat consistently within districts.If so, and given the fact that findings were similar across districts andteams, then the chance of bias from inconsistent use of the assessment toolsis probably small.8 The VAM Unit, in coordination with consultants from GTZ has developed a‘VDC Ranking’ methodology designed to identify the most food insecure andvulnerable communities within selected targeted districts. Althoughrefinements are still necessary, this method has been successfully pilotedin 3 districts as part of a recent German government funded technicalmission, and then further carried out in two other districts.


26

According to Table 4.1, the indicators used by community members to distinguish the foodsecure from food insecure households suggest that asset poverty is the primary determinant offood insecurity throughout much of Nepal. Of the top ten most frequently cited criteria usedto define the food secure from food insecure households, most relate to the lack of access toand quality of land, livestock, and (skilled) labour resources within households. Working aswage labour or semi-skilled casual labour, cited in nearly 25 percent of all villages, are theonly criteria that speak to broader socio-economic conditions, and again this refers that thosewho work as wage labour or semi-skilled casual wage labour are the food insecure.Quantitative data within settlements generally supports these observations (Annex 4, Table 1).Further elaboration on these aspects based on these data appear in the following sections.

Table 4.1. Main Indicators used for Distinguishing Food Secureand Food Insecure Households in 65 Surveyed Communities, Nepal 2000

Indicators No %

Lack of able-bodied labourSmall land holdingsLack of access to service/pension incomeSmall livestock holdingsPoor land quality/locationWorking as wage labourWorking as semi-skilled labourLack of foreign remittancesReliance on tenancy arrangementsLack of occupation in trades

42373325221615141312

64.656.950.838.533.824.623.121.520.018.5

Total 65 100.0

Characteristics of Food Insecure Households

Table 4.2 shows some characteristics of food insecure groups (groups C and D) which aretreated as consisting of food insecure households in this study. Group C includes thosehouseholds who can obtain sufficient food for themselves in normal times, but only withassistance from others, whereas group D includes those households who cannot obtainsufficient food for themselves in normal times even with the assistance of others.

Altogether 52 characteristics were pointed out by the people of the 65 communities as thefeatures of the group C and D households. There are about 34 characteristics which arepointed by at least two of the 65 communities, and the rest are only by one community. Table4.2 includes only those characteristics, which were pointed out at least by four communities.The characteristics of the two groups of the vulnerable populations are similar in term ofmany characteristics, but they differ in terms of the number of communities saying them asthe characteristics of either group C or group D households. For example “Less or no Animal”as the characteristic of group C was stated only by 32 percent communities, whereas 35percent communities stated it as the characteristic of group D, implying that size of animalholding is somewhat more important for the more food insecure group, i.e, group Dhouseholds.

However, four features stand more or less in the same order for both the groups. They are a)greater dependency ratio or smaller proportion of able-bodied persons, b) households workingmainly as labourers or porters to earn their livelihood, c) small or marginal holding, and d)few or no animals. Greater dependency ratio as the feature was stated by 71 percent of thecommunities for group C, whereas by 79 percent of the communities for the group D.Similarly, the proportion of communities stating labours or porters as the feature of foodinsecure households is higher for the group D as compared to the group C. Small or medium


27

F i g u r e 4 . 2 : P r o p o r t i o n o f A b l e - b o d i e d P e r s o n s i n

F o o d S e c u r e a n d F o o d I n s e c u r e H o u s e h o l d s

0 %

2 0 %

4 0 %

6 0 %

8 0 %

1 5 9 1 3 1 7 2 1 2 5 2 9 3 3 3 7 4 1 4 5 4 9 5 3 5 7 6 1 6 5

C o m m u n i t i e s

F o o d S e c u r e F o o d I n s e c u r e

size of holding was said as the feature of the group C households, but it is the landless ormarginal land holding in case of the group D households.

Some other characteristics of the food insecure or vulnerable households not included in thetable are interesting, and some others are related to some types of natural disasters. Thus,families with illiterate members, singers and/or dancers, bamboo basket makers, flute sellers,herders, and vegetable sellers are treated as the hungry poor (group D) households. Familieswhose land affected by flood, or land sold for food, or families having only one occupation,or separated family have also been treated as the hungry poor in few of the communities.

Table 4.2Characteristics of Vulnerable Groups as Stated by 65 Communities

Group C Group DCharacteristics % Characteristics %

Greater dependency ratioLabourers/portersSmall/medium size landholdingLess or no animalsTenant farmersLess remittancesOccupation by casteUnemployed/recently employedLess productive landSkilled labour (mason/carpenter)FishermanNo lowlandBorrowerManaging only by ordinary serviceExtravagant/lazy/innocent peopleJust separated familyGovernment Land holdersBonded labour

70.846.244.632.326.223.118.518.518.516.912.312.39.27.77.77.76.26.26.2

Greater dependency ratioLabourers/portersLandless/hhs with only houseMarginal land holdingLess or no animalsWeak/disable/sick familyUnemployedTenant (land/animal)Occupation by casteFemale HH head/widowSkilled labourBonded labourFishermenGovernment land holdersExtravagant/lazy/innocentBorrowerLess remittancesBeggarStaying/working in others houseUnskilled

78.553.849.241.535.430.821.520.016.913.810.810.89.27.77.77.76.26.26.26.2

Able-bodied Persons and Food Insecurity

Proportion of able-bodiedpersons appeared as the mostimportant criteria todistinguish a food securehousehold from a foodinsecure household by abouttwo-thirds of the communities(Table 4.1). This is plausible,and is supported byquantitative informationcollected on this aspect acrossthe 65 communities. Figure 4.2shows that proportion of ablebodied persons hovers around50 percent in most of thecommunities, and this differs


28

Figure 4.3: Proport ion of Food Secure and Food Insecure Householdsas Landless

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

120%

1 4 7 1 0 1 3 1 6 1 9 2 2 2 5 2 8 3 1 3 4 3 7 4 0 4 3 4 6 4 9 5 2 5 5 5 8 6 1 6 4

Communi t ies

Food Secure Food Insecure

F i g u r e 4 . 4 : P r o p o r t i o n o f F o o d S e c u r e a n d F o o d

I n s e c u r e H o u s e h o l d s w i t h L i v e s t o c k

0 %

50%1 0 0 %

1 5 0 %

1 5 9 1 3 1 7 2 1 2 5 2 9 3 3 3 7 4 1 4 5 4 9 5 3 5 7 6 1 6 5

Communi t ies

F o o d S e c u r e F o o d I n s e c u r e

among food secure and food insecure households at the community level. The proportion ofable-bodied persons is higher among the food secure groups in 41 out of the 65 communities(see Annex 4, Table 1), implying that in most of the communities, food insecure householdshave larger dependency ratio and therefore difficult to feed their families.

Landlessness and Food Insecurity

Figure 4.3 shows that across the all 65 communities, a larger proportion of landlesshouseholds are food insecure households. Out of the total 65 communities, there is no onelandless among the food secure households in 46 communities, but the corresponding figurefor food insecure households is only 19 communities.

Livestock Ownership and Food Security

Apart from land holding, size oflivestock holding has also beenadvanced as one of the maincriteria for distinguishing foodsecure households from foodinsecure households. Figure 4.4shows the proportion of foodsecure and insecure householdsof 65 communities withlivestock. In almost all of thecommunities the proportion ofhouseholds with livestock ishigher among the food secure ascompared to the food insecure groups of households. The distinction seems wider in case ofthe draft power, in which a larger proportion of households have draft power as compared tothose of the food insecure households in most of the communities (see Annex 4). This isobvious as a larger proportion of the households in the food insecure groups are landless ascompared to that of the food secure households.

Irrigated Facility and Food Security


29

Figure 4.5: Proportion of Food Secure and Food Insecure

Households with Irrigation Facility

0%

50%

100%

150%

1 5 9 13 17 21 25 29 33 37 41 45 49 53 57 61 65

Food Secure Food Insecure

It is established that per hectare yield of irrigated land is higher than that of the non-irrigatedland because of the effective use of the modern inputs, and higher cropping intensity in theformer as compared to the latter. Information has been collected about the ownership of land,and their irrigation status. This information is presented in Figure 4.5 by food secure and foodinsecure households across the 65 communities. Evident from the figure is that across most ofthe communities, the proportion of households with irrigation facility in food secure group ishigher than that of the food insecure group of households. The proportion of food secure andinsecure households with other attributes are given in the Annex 4. However, they are furthersummarised in the following section by estimating a logistic regression model.

Multivariate Analysis: Estimation of Logistic Regression Model

A logistic regression model was used in order to find out the factors explaining foodinsecurity, and whether these factors match with those identified by the communities as givenin Table 4.1 This will also help to calibrate our eye estimates of some of the criteria whichhave been plotted in terms of chart in the preceding section. The specification of the model(inclusion of the variables) is guided by the criteria as mentioned by the community people inTable 4.3, and more importantly by the availability of data. The functional form is a semi-logmodel where the dependent variable is log of the odd ratio of probability of food insecure toprobability of food secure, which therefore simply is the odds in favour of food insecurity.The log of the odd ratio is linear in the independent variables as well as in the parameters.Excluding B3 the expected sign of all the other BI’s is positive. The estimated model is givenin Table 4.3.

Logistic Regression Model

Ln (Pi/1-Pi) = B0 + B1 SEXi + B2 EDUi + B3 ABMRATi + B4 WORKOUTi + B5 LANDLESSi

+B6 IRRIGi + B7 TENANTi + B8 DRAFTLVi + B9 OTHLVi + B10 BONDi +B11 IMPWATi + B12 LATi + B13 CASTEi + u i


30

The explanatory power of the model (R2) is about 18 percent. The sign of the estimatedcoefficients is different from the expected sign in case of two variables, sex and caste. Forexample, the negative sign of the coefficient of sex implies that if the household head isfemale then it has negative influence on the food insecurity, implying that the householdswith female heads are not likely to be food insecure households. However the coefficient ofsex is not statistically significant even at 10 percent probability level, implying that it does nothave influence on food insecurity. But the negative coefficient of caste is statisticallysignificant which could be due to the fact that most of the selected vulnerable settlementswere predominantly settled by disadvantaged castes. In fact, the sample of the settlements wasbiased towards selecting the most vulnerable settlements as identified by the district levelauthorities. However, this signifies that vulnerable settlements in Nepal are those settlementswhich are dominantly settled by disadvantaged castes.

The other two variables which are statistically insignificant but has expected sign are themembers of households working outside which and latrine ownership. They however implythat if the household members are working outside or if a household is without latrine then itis likely that households will be food insecure. The reason for the coefficient of “workingoutside” being insignificant is that this variable does not take into account for how manymembers are working outside community and whether in the country or outside the country.There is big difference among the earnings of those who work in India and those who work inthe third countries, and similarly if one member or more than one members are working.Therefore, if such adjustment is made then this variable would have significant effect on thefood insecurity. The insignificant coefficient of latrine implies that latrine ownership does notsignificantly differ between the food insecure and food secure household, which support thefindings of the other previous studies conducted in Nepal that points that the latrineownership is not much explained by the economic factors but by socio-cultural factors.

Table 4.3: Factors explaining food insecurity

Independent variables B S.E. t-valueSex (female = 1, 0 otherwise)Education (illiterate hh head = 1, 0 otherwise)Ratio of able-bodied membersHH members working outside as labourer(working outside = 1, 0 otherwise)

Landless (landless household = 1, 0 otherwise)Irrigation (HH without irrigation facility = 1, 0 otherwise)Tenant (Tenant household = 1, 0 otherwise)Draft livestock ( HH without draft livestock = 1, 0 otherwise)Other livestock ( HH without other livestock = 1, 0 otherwise)Bonded labour (HH members work as bonded labour = 1, 0 otherwise)Improved water (HH without improved water = 1, 0 otherwise)Latrine ( Household without latrine = 1, 0 otherwise)Caste of HH ( HH with disadvantaged caste = 1, 0 otherwise)

Constant

-0.1170.395-0.5310.089

0.5260.4860.3831.1120.7661.9690.2250.102-0.237

-0.598

0.2000.0850.1810.083

0.1590.0880.1080.0940.1210.3540.0870.1070.092

0.149

-0.5854.647-2.9341.072

3.3085.5233.54611.8306.3315.5622.5860.953-2.576

-4.013

Note: The coefficient of three variables, viz., sex, working outside and latrine are not statically significant even at 10percent probability level, Whereas those of all the other variable are significant at 1 or less than 1 percent probabilitylevel.

However, all the other 8 variables have significant coefficients and all have positivecoefficient expected the one, i.e., ratio of able bodied members. The value of the coefficientof the able bodied members is 0.531, and is negative which implies that holding all otherthings constant, if the proportion of able-bodied members increases by one unit, on the


31

average, the log of the odd ratio or the logit in favour of becoming food insecure goes downby 0.53 units. Thus, proportion of the able-bodied members have significant effect on thefood insecurity which supports this criterion as stipulated by most of the communities (seeTable 4.1).

Excluding the able-bodied members, all the other significant variables have positive influenceon food insecurity. For example, the positive coefficient of landless implies that ceterisparibus, the odds of becoming food insecure, on the average, goes up by 0.53 units for thosewho are landless. Thus, food insecure households are those households which are landless,who have land without irrigation facility, who are tenant, who do not have draft power orother livestock, and who do not have improved water facility.

These finding corroborate with the finding or the criteria as mentioned by the communitypeople in Table 4.1. Moreover, they corroborate the preceding explanation of thelandlessness, irrigation and livestock ownership as the factors explaining food insecurity.

4.4 SUMMARY

To summarise, the food insecure and vulnerable households in Nepal include those that arelandless and labourers including bonded labourers, who are tenants, or who have only a smallpiece of unproductive or unirrigated land. In the hill and mountain districts this last grouptypically includes those who lack access to fields in low-lying areas around the settlement. Inthe Terai, these households include those who live on the banks of flood-prone rivers and inareas of poor soil fertility.

In addition, the most food insecure households also include those with a small number ofable-bodied workers, with few skills and little opportunity to derive income from remittancesand seasonal migration, which is a particularly important source of income for households inmuch of the hill and mountain districts. Households without access to income from smalltrading opportunities, from employment in the services sector or from pensions, and whoinstead rely on apparently uncertain, casual employment as agricultural labourers and portersare also among the most food insecure populations in the country.

Interestingly, at the national level, the issues of caste, sex of household head, and geographicremoteness are not among the most often cited factors that determine food insecurityaccording to local perceptions. In the case of occupational and disadvantaged castes, thesepopulations were highly prevalent throughout the sample settlements, so that, in many cases,caste difference were not relevant to within-community distinctions between food secure andinsecure households. Since all members in sample settlements were equally remote frominfrastructure, markets, and services, these criteria were also not directly relevant in thisvillage-level analysis.

Clearly, however, both factors are important determinants of food insecurity in Nepal. Wherethere is differentiation by caste within selected communities, households belonging tooccupational castes such as Kami (blacksmith), Damai (tailor) and Sarki (cobbler) in hillsand disadvantaged castes such as Chamar (also called Harijan), Bhand, Satar, Tatmas,Dusadh, Musahar, Dhankar and Badi in the Terai commonly included among the most foodinsecure. In terms of geographic access, the most remote areas include the mountain districts,particularly in the Karnali mountain region, and some hill regions (see the VAM Issues Paperfor more detailed description of these issues). Note, in discussions of local developmentpriorities presented in Chapter Eight, the construction of roads is one of the frequentlymentioned community-level priorities across the villages in the assessment.


32

The reason behind castes and geographic remoteness not appearing as a criteria withincommunity distinction is that these criteria were already used by the district level stakeholdersduring the course of the identification of vulnerable settlement in their districts. The dominantcastes of the surveyed vulnerable settlements are given in Annex 4 Table 2, which shows thatapart from the castes mentioned above some other castes such as Tamang, Sherpa, Thami,Danuwar, Majhi, Bote, gaine are also vulnerable population in hills. Some castes like Rai andLimbu in eastern part, Thakuri in the western part, and Brahmin and Chhetri in somesettlements throughout the country were the dominant castes of the vulnerable settlements. Inthe Terai apart from above mentioned castes, some other castes such as Koiri, Kurmi, Kewat,Kohar, Sahani, Dhobi, Tharu and Teli were also the dominant castes of some vulnerablesettlements.

A large number of criteria were identified and were taken into account in some districts whileidentifying their vulnerable settlements, and there is some variations across the districts suchas flood prone areas were taken as a criteria in Flood prone Terai districts whereas humandiseases such as diarrhoea and dysentery in Central Mountain district clusters (Sindhupalchokdistrict). These criteria include access to infrastructures including roads, markets, irrigation,access to services, remoteness, productivity, employment opportunities,; socio-economiccharacteristics including illiteracy, disadvantaged castes such as Kami, Damai and Sarki in thehill and mountains and Chamar/Harizan, Musahar, Dusadh, Tatmas, Dom among others inTerai; environmental features including geography or remoteness, risk factors includingnatural disasters, diseases relating to human, animals and plants.

In the case of gender and bonded labour, however, these factors appear to be important onlywithin key regional clusters with more traditional cultural practices. With a few exceptions,the overall prevalence of female-headed households in the villages included in this assessmentis quite low to begin with. Among the 65 settlements included in the assessment, theproportion of female-headed households ranged from 0 to over 23 percent. Female-headedhouseholds are over-represented among the food insecure in a small number of villageexamples. In one or two villages, they are actually over-represented among the food securehouseholds.


33

CHAPTER V

RISKS AND HAZARDS

5.1 TYPES OF RISKS AND HAZARDS

Under FSVP rapid assessment, various risks and hazards were noted across district clusters.These risks and hazards are grouped into five heads: a) natural hazards b) human diseases, c)animal diseases, d) plant diseases, and e) other risks, and are reported in Table 5.1. Over thetime, types of natural disasters reported are similar, but there are changes in types of diseases.For example, locust was main problem around 1950s but not now. But there are some otherplant diseases appearing these days with the biochemical innovation under the high yieldingvariety technology. Similarly, some of the animal diseases reported in the past are notreported now. Instead, some other animal diseases are reported now. There is variation intypes of disasters occurring in different ecological regions and districts of the country, and thedetails are given in the district cluster level report.

Table 5.1A Typology of Risks and Hazards by Region, Nepal, 2000

Natural Hazards Human diseases Animal diseases Plant diseases OtherMountain

• Hailstorm• Snowfall• Drought• Flood• Earthquake• Excessive

rainfall• Change in

the courseof river

• Diarrhoea• Measles• Cholera• Smallpox• Dysentery• Eye infection• Epidemic• Nerve

diseases

• Epidemic• Bhyagute Rog• (haemorhagic

saepltcaemia)• Charchare (black quarter)• Padake (anthrax)• Khoret (foot & mouth

disease)• Khari• Diarrhoea• Rabies• Ranikhet (Newcastle) in

chicken• Scabies/menge

• Insectattack

• Locust• Patero

insect(gandhibug)

• Male ingrass

• Use of urea fertiliser• No access to Patan lekh

(hill)• Bridge construction in Jumla

airport• Community forestry• Use of Improved seed• Cadastral survey• Land reform• Price rise of NFC foodgrains

in Humla

Hill

• Drought• Hailstorm• Earthquake• Flood• Storm• Excessive

rainfall

• Cholera• Dysentery• Diarrhoea• Measles• Smallpox• Respiratory

disease• Kalazar

• Boil onupper palate

• Epidemic• Bhyagute Rog

(haemorhagic saepltcaemia)• Khari• Diarrhoea• Namle (liver flue)• Kharane• Lohumute (babesioosis)

• Padakeinsect (planthopper)

• Locust• Dhaduwa

(blight)• Maize

disease

• Increase in Tax• Fire• Community forestry• Announcement of dry zone• Termination of Panchayat

system• Distribution of land holding

certificate• Deforestation• Resettlement• Crop damage by porcupine

Terai

• Flood• River

cutting• Storm• Hailstorm• Excessive

rainfall

• Diarrhoea• Cholera• Measles• Kalazar• Encephalitis

Stomachupset

• Epidemic• Khoret (foot and mouth

disease)• Khoero/alopecia• Bhyagute

Rog((haemorhagicsaepltcaemia)

• Padake (anthrax)

• Insectattack

• wheatdisease

• Gingerdecay

• Robbery• Snake bite• Crop damage by animals

(Spotted deer/antelope,elephant)

• Fire• Land reform

Natural Hazards

Important natural hazards pointed by community people are: hailstorm, flood, excessiverainfall, drought, earthquake, storm, change in the course of river, and snowfall. Hailstorm,flood, excessive rain fall and drought were reported in all the three ecological regions;


34

earthquake generally in mountain and hills but not in Terai; storm generally in hill and Teraibut not in Mountain; change in the course of river in Terai; and landslides in hills andMountain; and snow fall only in the Mountain region of the country. However, there are widedifferences in the types of natural hazards occurring in different districts of the country.

Human Diseases

The second most recurring hazards reported were human and animal diseases. Among thehuman diseases, diarrhoea, dysentery, fever, cholera, and measles were commonly reported.Some other human diseases include small pox, eye infection, nerve diseases in mountain;small pox, Kalazar in hill; and Kalazar and encephalitis in Terai. Besides, some other diseasesin mountain, respiratory diseases in hills, and stomach upset in Terai were also reported.

Animal Diseases

Overall, the number of animal diseases reported is not less than that of the human diseases,reflecting how much important animal husbandry is in Nepal, and especially among thevulnerable communities of Nepal. Since animals serve as the cushion for mitigating theeffects of natural disasters that damage crops, poor people attach a greater preference andvalue on animals.

Among the big animals, haemorhagic saepltcaemia (Bhyagute disease), black quarter(Charchare), Anthrax (Padake), and Foot and mouth diseases (Khoret) are more common.These diseases are reported across all the three regions. Khare, Kharane, scabies, Namle andsome other diseases were also reported in animals. A disease in poultry called Ranikhet, isreported only in mountain.

Plant Diseases

Compared to human and animal diseases, plant diseases reported few, across the threeecological regions, presumably because people did not know the names of most of suchdiseases and they commonly lumped them in a single name such as insect attack. Problem oflocusts that damage crops to a large extent were reported in mountain and hill districts.Patero, Dhaduwa, and some other diseases in maize and paddy were also reported. Theproblem of ginger decay was significant in Nawalparasi and Morang districts.

Other Risks and Hazards

Community people mentioned many other hazards, and most of them relate to policy risks,and other to manmade hazards. One of the major sources of income of the people of the mid-and far-west mountain is sale of herbs. A change in policy of the government and/or othermanmade risks created them a lot of sufferings. For example, implementation of communityforestry programme had affected livelihoods of fire wood seller in some communities and firewood buyer of some communities like Simikot of Humla due to price rise. Similarly, PatanLekh (hill) of Jumla contracted with a private contractor in 1998 affected lives of the peopleof Talium-1 of Jumla district as they were not allowed to extract and sell herbs from this hillforest. Lack of employment opportunities made them to stay fast during some times, andsome time they had to survive eating apple and some times grain if they were lucky enough tohunt some works.


35

No access to Patan Hill forextracting herbs in Jumla, repairand maintenance of Jumlaairport, implementation ofcommunity forestry, landreform and cadastral survey,and price hike of NFCfoodgrains in Humla, werepointed as hazards in themountain districts. In case ofhill districts, increase in landtax, implementation ofcommunity forestry,announcement of dry zone,distribution of landholdingcertificate, deforestation,resettlement and termination of

People of Talium also pointed a short pause ofJumla airport for repair and maintenance in the lastJune and July of 2000 as risk, since they did not getemployment for portering grains and other goodswhich they used to get when there was plane servicebefore the maintenance of the airport. Therefore,they had to borrow loan from local moneylenders atas high as 120 percent interest rate per annum. Onthe other hand, price of food grain and other goodshas spiralled because of the short supply due topause of the plane service there. People of Patamaraof Jumla district pointed land measurement(cadastral) survey conducted in 1995 as a riskbecause this has resulted into higher payment ofland tax. Before the survey they had to pay a lowertax on the basis of per household. But after thesurvey they have to pay land based on the fragmentsof land and their location. Thus, a small farmer,who has small pieces of land in different places, hasto pay more land tax as compared to a richhousehold who has larger holding but in few places.

After the implementation of Land Reform Act 1964, some of the families of Guruwagaon andChamarTole of Banke did not get tenancy certificate on the one hand, and they had beenevicted by their tenants to cultivate the land which they had been cultivating since the longpast on the other. Similarly, because of the close up of the agro-processing mill located nearthis community, about 500 people lost employment. These people turned to otheremployments such as rikshaw pulling in Nepalgunj, firewood selling and other wage labour inorder to cope the situation.

Price risk increases from south to north part of the country. People of Syanda in Humlarecalled price hike of foodgrains of Nepal Food Corporation (NFC) resulted into risk to theirfood security. Price increased from Rs 23 to Rs 40 per kg from May 14, 2000. As a result, itwas difficult for them to buy foodgrain and thus they had to depend on forest food items.

Robbery has been pointed out another risk in the Terai district like Morang. Kamati Tole ofMorang suffered from robbery during 1983 to 1999 when Indian robbers from Ranikattavillage used to rob livestock, gold and silver ornaments and other properties and demand cashin return for their properties.

5.2 FREQUENCY AND SEVERITY OF HAZARDS

Some districts have suffered from a specific type of hazards. For example, Parsa, NawalparasiBanke and Sarlahi from floods; Solukhumbu and Sindhupalchok from diarrhoea; Banke fromfire; Parsa and Kailali from snake bites; Sankhuwasabha and Humla from drought; and manyother districts from drought and uncertain monsoon leading to excessive rainfall and itsconcomitant effect of landslides.

In order to find out the severity of different types of risk and hazards their number ofoccurrence during the period 1975-2000 has been counted and is reported in the Annex 5Table 1. There is more than one frequency of natural hazards and diseases relating to human,animal and plant, but that of the policy and other risks and hazards is not more than one in any


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Figure 5.1: Proportion of Communities where the most Severe hazard was among the Most Frequent Hazard, 1975-2000

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

East Mountain and Hill

East Hill with Cash Crops

East Terai

Mountain Tourist Districts

East Siwalik Region

Flood-prone East & Central Terai

Central Mountain & Hill

North-west Hill

South-west Hill

West Terai

Karnali Transhimalaya

Mid-west Hill

Far-west Mountain

Far-west Hill

Mid-& Far-west Terai

Nepal

of the 65 survey communities during the period. Diarrhoea, measles and other humanepidemic, animal epidemic and insect in paddy occurred more than once in few communities.

In terms of the frequency, natural hazards are more frequent than other hazards across thecommunities. Again, among the natural hazards, hailstorm is more frequent in manycommunities followed by flood and drought. However, hailstorm generally occurs in hills andmountain whereas flood in Terai.

There are some natural hazardssuch as flood and change in courseof river in Nawalparasi and Bankethat occur every year. The changein the course of Narayani river inNawalparasi and Rapti river inBanke and Bagmati river in Sarlahiis more serious. In fact, the problemof flood and change in the course ofriver is increasing with time in theTerai districts. The main reason isthe construction of embankment inthe bordering districts of India,across the banks of rivers passingfrom Nepal, which did not allowpassing water to India as fast as itwas in the past before theconstruction of such embankments.The problem will become furtherserious in future unless the twogovernments seriously consider thisissue as soon as possible. On theother hand, the effect of some natural disasters is decreasing in some of the hill districts. Thefrequency of hailstorm in Parbat, Jumla and Baitadi; famine in Darchula, Baitadi andArghakhanchi, flood in Baitadi was found greater before 1975 than during 1975 – 2000,implying that the severity of these hazards is decreasing in these districts with time.

Figure 5.1 shows the proportion of communities of the district clusters where the most severehazards were among the most frequent hazards during the last 25 years. Out of the 15 districtclusters, the most severe hazard did not happen to be among the most frequent ones in threedistrict clusters. The proportion is larger in the mountain district clusters, and in the Teraidistrict clusters due to flood which are frequent and are devastating as well, as compared tothe hazards that occur in the hill which are more localised. In some communities of mountaintourist districts such as the Kanku community of Solukhumbu district where hailstormdamaged both summer and winter crops, and in Manang snowfall is a great problem.Hailstorm, drought or excessive rainfall and its concomitant effects such as landslides resultinto great loss. Animal diseases are common but it is severe in some districts, especially ofthe mountain region. Further details appear in Annex 5, Table 2.

5.3 LOSS FROM HAZARDS

Hailstorm and Storm

Loss from hailstorm is higher in hills and mountain than Terai, which occur at least onceduring the pre-monsoon or in the early monsoon period, damaging main summer crop, maize,


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The entire Swayarumba VDC of Panchthar was affectedby droughts occurred in 1977, 1982 and 1994. The 1994drought damaged 90 to 95 percent of maize and paddycrops. Drought lost 80 percent of the production ofcardamom, potato, and cereals in Prangbung – 4 ofPanchthar district. Similarly, the three communities ofthe Sankhuwasabha district were affected by drought:the 1982 drought in Kharang resulted into littleproduction just enough for seed; the people ofBaneshwar could not plant maize due to 1997 drought;and the drought of 1998 in Bala resulted into loss of 80percent in paddy production and 50 percent in maizeand millet. The drought of 1999 in Waku ofSolukhumbu district made people plant maize late and

in most of the hill and mountain districts. Its effect on maize ranges between a quarter to ashigh as 90 percent, with a median value of around 50 percent. Its effect is less severe, around25 percent in millet as millet is planted in June when the probability of hailstorm is less, andat times it is planted in the standing maize and therefore are protected from standing maize.Millet and potato help to mitigate the loss in maize production in hills and mountains.

Storm also results into loss of maize crop because of its long but feeble stem. The storm ofsummer season (April to June) makes maize fall and therefore affects its productivity. Itseffect is only around 25 percent. In order to avoid the effect of storm, people of Bhoksing ofParbat district started cultivating maize in March/April in stead of February/March but at thecost of reduced productivity because of late plantation of maize. Besides crops, storm alsoaffects other properties including houses and animals. Such damage of houses is higher in theTerai than in the hills.

Flood, Land Slides and Change in the Course of River

Excess rain results into floods that cause landslides generally in the hills and mountains andfloods and changes in the course of rivers in the Terai. Because lands are flat in the Terai theeffect of flood and change in the courses of rivers is extensive in the Terai and its exposure isincreasing with the time because of the embankment constructed at major rivers by India inbordering Indian communities.

Because of flood, people in some Terai communities cultivate sugarcane as the single crop forthe whole year rather than two crops. The case of Rampur Khadauna and Bhujahawa VDCs inNawalparasi district is outstanding. Because of the long-standing flood and water logging,people of these communities cannot raise paddy in spite of their effort for planting paddy twoto three times. In some years, even sugarcane are also lost in 25 percent land of thesecommunities. 9

Drought

There are certain districtssuch as Sindhupalchok,Arghakhanchi andSurkhet where droughtwas more frequent before1975 than after 1975.Overall, drought is morefrequent and severe in themountains and in somedistricts of the hills, and ismore frequent in the Mid-western part as comparedto the eastern part ofNepal. However, becauseof the uncertain monsoon, the effect of drought is every where.

9 However, paddy is the main staple food grains for the people of this community and therefore they have somepreference to plant although sugarcane is profitable. Moreover, conversion of paddy land to sugarcane has someimplication from the point of view of food security.


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When drought is coupled with other disasters,the effect is disastrous in the mountain.Generally, drought results into late sowing ofmaize which suffer from at least onehailstorm. This ultimately results into lowproductivity, making people difficult tosurvive in many of the mountainous districts.

Drought is not as frequent as hailstorm, butwhenever it occurs its impact is higher thanthat of the hailstorm. There are exampleswhich point that people could not raise evenfive percent of their total production fromtheir field due to drought in Terai andmountains. Generally, lack of rain duringMarch and April result into late plantation ofmaize affecting the productivity of maize aswell as other crops, following maize in the hills. A larger period of drought extending fromMarch to July affects both the summer crops of the current year and the winter crops of thepreceding year such as in Surkhet district.

Animal Diseases

Animal disease was reported in all the survey district clusters. There is frequent occurrence ofanimal diseases in Terai as well but as there is easier access to veterinary services the impactis less as compared to mountainous and some hill districts.

Some animal diseases were reported in all the three surveyed communities of Udayapurdistrict: Diphtheria killed 20 to 25 cattle in Jahadi (Danuwar settlement) of Katari VDC in1996; cholera killed about 300 goats and poultry in Chilaune ward 3 in 2000; and Namlekilled 10 cattle (buffalo and cow) in Rajabas of Rauta VDC in 1998.

Jugepani community of Siddheswar VDC of Baitadi district recalled three animal diseasesduring 1992 – 1995, two of them occurred in 1995. Lohamute killed 100 buffalo and anotherdisease killed 200 goats in 1995, that impoverished people and many households became netborrowers. Khari disease killed 300 buffaloes and this disease shows its ugly head since then.About 400-500 pigs were killed in 1990, and 200 goats were killed in 1995 due to Kharanediseases in Prangbung – 4 of Panchthar district. Animal diseases were reported in three of thefour surveyed communities of Surkhet district, but their consequence was more severe inNeta. For example, in Sireni Tole of Neta VDC, cholera was reported three times in animals:two times during 1950-51 and the other one in 1961. The one of the 1951 was the most severewhich killed all the cattle (about 100) of the village.

Human Diseases

The most common diseases were diarrhoea, dysentery, worms and small pox and measles.Their effect was different across regions and across communities and districts of a region.Diarrhoea and dysentery claim lives of many children and some adults in mountainousdistricts like Panchan of Solukhumbu district, and Hagam of Sindhupalchok district. Cholerawas also reported in mountainous district, Humla. Both animal diseases and human diseasesare more common in mountainous districts like Humla, Jumla, and Solukhumbu.

14 school children died of measles in Seselmu of panchan VDC of Solukuhubu district in1986, 13 children died of diarrhoea in the same community in 1992. Similarly, 25 childrendied of diarrhoea in Waku – 5 of the same district. The third surveyed community, Amarans,of the district was also not an exception as 50 people died of diarrhoea there in 2000.

In Hepka community of Humla district, 60 people died of small pox in 1959, 14 people diedof diarrhoea in the same community in 1999. Measles claimed lives of 13 persons in Changancommunity of Humla district in 1975, and another 12 in 1994 in the same community.Additional 13 children died of diarrhoea in this community in 1998. Moreover cunjevitis had


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Locust destroyed all major crops inKaulechaur of Khanchikot VDC in 1955and in Danda Tole of Pokharathok VDCin 1960 and all the maize and millet inJarauli of Sakar VDC of Baitadi districtin 1948 and in Dharapani VDC ofSurkhet in 1951. However, the attack oflocust is not reported in the recent past,implying that the effect of this disaster isnot much in Nepal at present.

also been a great problem in this district suffering 200 people in 1994. Syanda community(Vyansi Community) of Humla district suffered from diarrhoea and fever which claimed thelives of 15 people in 1998. Similarly, an epidemic with symptom of fever and headacheoccurred twice in 1974 and 1994 in Simikot of Humla district, killing 25 and 50 persons,respectively. Another epidemic with cough and cold symptoms killed about 50 people of thiscommunity in 1974.

Cholera epidemic claimed the lives of 50 to 60 persons in Jahadi (Danuwar settlement) ofKatari VDC of Udayapur district in 1965. People went to forest to protect from cholera.Similarly, 25 percent people of Swayarumba VDC of Panchthar district were affected fromthe dysentery of 1977, and cholera killed 17 people of this VDC during 24 days in 1961.Measles and diarrhoea killed 4 children in Prangbung – 4 of Panchthar district in 1996.

Plant diseases

It was difficult to name all the plant diseases bythe survey communities and therefore at timesthey reported insect attacks to their crops. Theeffect of locust was very high in Arghakhanchidistrict, and the insect attack was also very high inKailali district. People of Amarans of Solukhumbudistrict recalled the attack of Male insect whichdestroyed grasses such as Dudhelu and Gugun andtherefore it was very difficult for them to raisetheir animals. Patake disease in 1999 damagedcompletely early paddy (Chaite paddy) in Majhitar, Salghari communities of Fidim VDC ofPanchthar district.

Other Losses

Snakebite appears to be another risk in the eastern Terai. The inhabitants of Thori, Parsadistrict pointed that at least 4 to 5 people die of snakebite each year. People of Bangesal,Kailali district suffered from snakebite during 2000. Most of the people were cured fromtreatment at hospitals and at faith healers. Similarly, there is a problem of crop damage by theanimals of National Park. Each year people of Thori suffer from such loss but they are notallowed to kill animal. They adopted different ways to chase away animals like deer.

5.4 SUMMARY

Survey communities reported natural hazards, diseases relating to human, animal and plantand some other manmade risks relating to policy changes or robbery. These risks and hazardsaffect their different assets including, human assets such as their labor, natural assets such asland, physical assets such as infrastructure, financial assets such as their savings, and socialassets.

Hailstorm, storm, flood and change in the course of rivers, excessive rainfall, drought,earthquake, and rainfall storm and snowfall were reported as the natural hazards. Hailstorm,flood, excessive rainfall were reported in all the three ecological regions; earthquakegenerally in mountain and hills; storm generally in hill and Terai; changes in the course ofriver in Terai and landslides in hills and mountains; and snowfall only in the mountain.Diarrhoea and dysentery, cholera and measles, and a number of diseases and epidemicsrelating to animal and plants were reported across all the communities.


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The loss of assets from hazards depends on when they occur and their frequency and also onthe types of hazards. Hailstorm is not that disastrous as compared to flood and drought as it ismore localised. But as it is more frequent it has significant effect on the crop production of alimited area. However, effect of drought and floods are more severe as they affect a largernumber of population. When there is drought for a longer time period, it affects both summerand winter crops and therefore its consequence to food security is high. Moreover, it hasseveral other consequences such as problem of drinking water or diseases and thus it resultsinto famine at times. Compared to extended period of drought, the effect of flood is lesssevere as it affects mainly summer crops, but in terms of the loss to the nation it has a greatereffect as its affect the Terai plane, the most fertile land of the country. Moreover, the effect offloods is increasing with the years due to the construction of embankment in the borderingcommunities of India by the Indian government which has resulted into water logging.

As to the human diseases, their effect is more on the poor and among the poor householdsmore on the women and children. Many communities reported death of children due tocommon diseases such as diarrhoea and measles. The loss of animal due to animal epidemicwas also severe. While animal epidemic is every where, its effect is further higher in themountain and part of the hill where animal husbandry is more important and where there isphysical inaccessibility and therefore difficult to get animal services. The loss from the plantdiseases is also high as the high yielding varieties are less resistant to the diseases. It hasdirect effect on the crop farmers as compared to other groups of the people who dependmainly on other sources of income.

As to the other risks, the implementation of community forestry has some negative effect inthe beginning which will be short-lived once the forests reach at their maximum sustainedyield level and forests are utilised properly on equal sharing basis. That community forestrywas reported as a risk shows that how vulnerable the people are in the surveyed communities.This vulnerability is manly due to the agricultural as the main occupation of the majority ofthe population, and there in close linkage between agriculture, animal husbandry and forestryin Nepal. Moreover, the other classes of the society depend on forest for their earnings


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Box 6.1: Risk Management Measures

Objective StrategiesRisk Reduction Informal FormalRisk Mitigation Informal FormalCoping with Shocks informal Formal

Table 6.1Informal Mechanisms for Managing Risks as Reported by the Survey Communities

Objective Informal MechanismsRisksMitigation

Working as a casual labourerPurchase and sale of foodgrains and animalsCollection and sale of forest and other nature-based productsShare croppingChange in occupation or diversification of occupationOther Petty trading activities

Coping withShocks

short-term StrategiesEating less preferred foodLimiting portion sizeCollection and sale of forest-based productsSale of livestock and drawing down seed reservesBorrowing food or moneyIn-kind gift from friends and relativesMaternal bufferingSkipping mealsDrawing down seed reservesCollection of wild foodsWage labourWorking demeaning or illegal jobsSale of used items and beggingLong-term StrategiesWorking as contract labourMigrationSale of draft powerMortgage and sale of land and other propertiesReliance on community

CHAPTER VI

RESPONSES TO RISKS BY HOUSEHOLDS AND COMMUNITIES

6.1 INTRODUCTION

For poor people, dealing successfully with the range of risks they are exposed to is often amatter of life or death. To manage risks, households and communities rely on both formal andinformal strategies. Informal strategies include arrangements done within the community bythe community people. Formal arrangements include government mechanisms.

Risks management strategies can be furtherclassified as risk reduction and mitigationmeasures (action in anticipation of a shock)and coping measures (action in response to ashock). Risk reduction aims at reducing theprobability of shocks, risk mitigation aims atreducing the impact of shocks, and copingmeasures aim to relieve the impact of a shockafter it occurs. Under the Rapid Assessment Survey, information was collected on the shocksoccurred and coping measures adopted to relieve the impact of shocks, by using a PRA toolcalled risk and hazard timeline. Therefore, the measures advanced by survey communities aremainly related to risk mitigation and coping measures, and are mostly related to informalmeasures. Thus, this chapter does not detail all the types of risk management measures asdescribed in Box 6.1, and focuses on the measures adopted by the communities as given inTable 6.1.


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6.2 RISK REDUCTION MEASURES

There are some informal mechanisms adopted by communities of Nepal in order to avoidrisks, such as community managed irrigation systems, construction of embankments, anddams and dikes. But such measures were not referred by the survey communities as they wereasked only for how do they cope after a shock has occurred in their community.

However, it has been noticed by some field survey teams that construction of embankment orchanging the course of river could be of significant help in the reduction of floods in theflood-prone Terai districts. Because flood is a risk of covariant type, affecting manycommunities, it is not possible to be done by a single community, and therefore needsgovernment attention. For example, embankment constructed by India has affected more thanfive VDCs of the survey areas of Bhujahawa of Nawalparasi district. The people ofBhujahawa said that construction of embankment nearby their community could solve theirproblem, but they could not do so because it needs co-operation of different VDCs andcommunities and a larger sum of money. WFP/Nepal has undertaken such efforts, althoughat a smaller scale in some of the RCIW districts. However, there is necessity of extendingthese efforts in the other flood-prone Terai districts as well but with the involvement of thecommunities, following the demand-driven approach.

Diarrhoea, dysentery, measles were commonly reported as risks by different communities(see Chapter V). The government has made provision of health services in the rural areas aswell. The current policy of the HMGN is to establish a sub-health post in each VDC. It hasbeen found that there is not effective use of such health institutions. Past studies reveal theirless effective use because of the lack of awareness of the people to visit health posts, lack ofmedicine, lack of physical access, and lack of trained staff living in the institution regularly.Thus, apart from better provision of health institutions, there is also a necessity of improvingthe demand for such services, which also requires increasing awareness of the communitypeople to visit health posts rather than faith healers for treatment of diseases. As mothers andchildren are the most disadvantaged groups, such awareness should focus on mother andchild health.

Besides, a number of animal and plant diseases were also reported by the survey communitieswhich have reduced their production and assets significantly. Agricultural and veterinaryservices centres are also not effectively used by the vulnerable communities, as they are farand lack transportation facilities. More than a quarter of survey communities requires three ormore hours to reach at the agriculture service centres. The accessibility is further poor in themountain where more than 30 percent communities require three or more hours to reach. Ofparticular note is that it is difficult to carry animals to the veterinary service centres. Thisimplies that for the effective utilisation of service centres of the government there is a needfor constructing road linking to such centres. However, compared to agricultural servicecentres, there was better access to drinking water and health services, not only in the Terai butalso in the mountains.

Access to all weather roads differs significantly by region and districts. There are about twothirds of the communities of mountain which require three or more days to reach to thenearest all weather road. On the other hand, all the surveyed communities of Terai can reachto such roads within a day. In the hills 85 percent of the communities can reach to all weatherroad within a day and the rest within less than three days (Figure 6.1). Alternatively, nearlythree quarters (73%) of the mountain communities reported having to walk 24 hours or moreto reach the nearest all weather roads. That compares to only 5 percent communities in thehills and zero percent in the Terai. This indicates the gravity of problem in the mountainousdistricts as compared to the other districts of the country. There are some communities of


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Hill

<12 hrs12-24 hrs24-36 hrs

36+ hrs

Mountain

<12 hrs

12-24 hrs24-36 hrs

36+ hrs

Percent of communities withaccess to nearest market within3+ hours, by region

Region PercentMountain 27Hill 15Terai 10

Nepal 20

districts like Humla and Jumla which take about 15 to 20 days to reach the nearest allweather road within the country.

Fig 6.1:Access to All Weather RoadThese communities have to walk and cross all themountain and come near to Terai to see all weatherroad and any other means of the moderntransportation. However, these districts are nearer toTibet. For, example it takes only four days to get atall weather road in Tibet for the people of Humladistrict.

Besides, market is more important in mountainwhere there is lack of availability of foodgrains.Overall, out of the 60 communities reporting thetime required for going to the nearest market, 27percent reported that it takes less than one hour, butone third reported that it takes one to two hours.Thus, for 40 percent of the communities it takes twoor more hours to get at the nearest market. These marketsin some districts are very small containing one or twoshops carrying very limited consumable and necessaryitems such as foodgrains, kerosene oil and few otheritems. Thus, for the other items or for the employment,people have to travel a longer distance. Significantvariation exists across the regions regarding access tomarkets. Approximately 27 percent of the settlements ofmountain are at three or more hours distance to thenearest market. That is compared with only 15 and 10 percent, respectively in hill and Teraicommunities.

Compared to roads and markets, there is relatively little difference in levels of access toagricultural and veterinary service centers and health institutions across the three regions ofthe country. In terms of access to agricultural service centers, approximately 69 percent ofcommunities had access within three hours in the mountains and Terai, compared to 85percent with similar access in the hills. For access to veterinary services, between 68 and 77percent of villages reported have access within three hours. In the mountains and hills, 80percent of communities reported being within 3 hours of a government nursery, compared toonly 67 percent in the Terai.

Access to health centers was reported to be even higher. All of the sampled mountainsettlements reported health institutions within three hours of their homes, compared to 93 and94 percent of settlements in the hills and Terai, respectively.

Of the 23 mountain villages included in the assessment, only 6 reported less than 70 percentof households with access to improved water sources. In the hills and Terai communities,similar levels of access to improved water sources were also reported. The average distanceto water sources (from both improved and un-improved sources) appears to actually be betterin the mountain areas, where all the sample settlements reported having access to water lessthan one hour from their homes. In contrast, some communities in the hill and Terai regionsreported more than one hour required for reaching at the source.

The preceding analysis suggests that in order to effectively reduce risks, especially human,animal and plant diseases, and some natural disasters like drought, construction of


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Working as agricultural laboris widely prevalentthroughout the country.Portering goods of localmerchants is the majorseasonal occupation of mostof the vulnerablecommunities of easternmountain. The time devoted

infrastructures including roads and irrigation and provision of market facilities is necessary.Moreover, creation of awareness about health and hygiene is also important for preventing orreducing risk and making people visits health posts regularly.

6.3 RISK MITIGATION MEASURES

Risk mitigation aims at reducing the impact of shocks. Households mitigate risks throughdiversification and insurance. Common diversification strategies adopted by the surveycommunities are working as casual labourers, selling forest-based products and diversifyingoccupations, etc (Table 6.1). Households also mitigate risks through insurance, including self-insurance, informal insurance, and formal insurance - though market-based formal insuranceplays a minor role for poor people.

Mitigating Risks through Diversification

Working as a Casual Labourer

Working as a causal labourer is widely adopted in all the survey communities, and is followedboth in the normal and abnormal years as the poor households are aware of the fact that theirfood stock is not able to meet food demand for whole year. However, as compared to thenormal year, people have to work more as casual labourers during the crisis year.

Working as casual labourer assumes different forms such as agricultural labourer during theagricultural season and non-agricultural labourer such as porterage, mason, carpenter duringthe agricultural off-season. Porterage in the mountain and agricultural labour in the Terai arethe most common. Working as agricultural labour is widely prevalent because agriculture isthe main occupation of rural people. Thus, members of one household work in others’ fieldonce they finish their own plantation. This has two-pronged objectives: a) helping otherhouseholds of community to plant within a limited period of time as agriculture is mainlyrainfed and dictated by monsoon; and b) supplementing household food deficit.Porterage is done mainly for transporting goods oflocal merchants in mountains and hill districts. Anincreasing use of donkey for transportation hasresulted into unemployment such as in Parbat district,because cost of transportation from donkey ischeaper than at the back of human labour. Besides,every year a large number of people of all threeregions of the country go to India to work as casuallabourer. As compared to normal year, larger numberof people go for such work during abnormal year fora further extended period of time.

Petty Trading Activities

There are instances, which show that whenever there are opportunities, people take advantageof those opportunities as they expect that their income is not sufficient to meet householddemand for food smoothly. For example, people of Seselmu of Solukhumbu district buypiglets from Diktel, the district headquarters of bordering district Khotang, and sell in anotherplaces, and people of Sindhupalchok district buy rice from nearby of Kathmandu and sell innorthern border of the district at higher price and thereby earn income in order to run theirfamilies. But these options are not open to the most poor households because of high start-upcosts. Therefore, in order to alleviate the situation of very poor and food insecure people,there should be enhanced provision of institutional credit without collateral.


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Figure 6.2: Change in Forest (% of Communities)

0 20 40 60 80 100

Mountain

Hill

Terai

Nepal

Decrease in crown cover

Decrease in forest resources

Increase in forest resources

Share Cropping

Share cropping of crops and animals also serves as one of the long term coping strategies insome districts. Vulnerable households of hills and Terai raise others’ animals in theanticipation of food crisis.

Because of the continuous hailstorm in Panchan community of Solukhumbu district, it wasvery difficult for people to earn their livelihoods from agriculture and therefore they divertedtowards animal husbandry and other occupations. Many households engaged in rearing goatsand chicken.

Collection and Sale of Forest and other Natural Resources

Collecting and selling firewood, grass, herbs and other natural resources are common inmountain and some hill districts in order to reduce and mitigate the effect of impending foodinsecurity. During crisis, this practice is more common as it can contribute significantly inearning livelihood. Forest resources are more important in hills and mountain than Terai.

Out of the 65 communities, 58 communities (89%) have access to either community orgovernment forest resources. Access to forest resources is higher in hill and mountain ascompared to Terai where there is lack of community forest because of late implementation ofcommunity forestry programme by the government in the Terai.

Major forest uses are firewood, log, grass and fodder. Besides, there are some additional usesof community forests such as cultivation of tea and cardamom and sale of Lokta (tree barkused for making paper). There is also sale of firewood and log from the community forests.Out of the 36 communities, which have access to community forests, 14 percent reported thatthey sell firewood, whereas 17 percent reported they also sell log from their communityforests.An enquiry was made about theforest situation with the communitypeople. Out of the 58 surveyedcommunities of the three regions ofthe country, 33 percent reportedthat their forest resources areincreasing but a larger proportion of59 percent reported that their forestresources are decreasing. Moreover,47 percent reported that there isdecrease in the crown cover offorests. This indicates that on thewhole deteriorating forest resourcesin the country (Figure 6.2) By region, a larger proportion of communities reported increasingof forest resources in hill as compared to Terai which could be due to early implementation ofcommunity forest in hills.

Out of the 33 communities which reported time to reach government forest, 36 percentreported that it takes only up to one hour to reach forest, whereas nine percent reported that ittakes three hours or more to get forest. As to the community forests, 54 percent reported thattheir forest is within the reach of less than one hour, and another 37 percent in the reach ofone to two hours. Thus, as high as 91 percent of the community forests can be reached withintwo hours. The proportion of community forests requiring three or more hours is only aboutthree percent. This signifies that wherever there are community forests, they are at the


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proximity of the communities. Compared to the community forests there are many nurserieslocated at farther distance. For example, 24 percent of the nurseries require three and morehours to reach. Thus, they take a whole day to go and return from there. The amount ofpasture land has decreased because of the encroachment or its registration in the name ofinstitutions such as school in the past. Similarly, there is lack of private forest especially inthe vulnerable communities as they lack land.

The preceding analysis suggests that there is a need for more rational use of forest resourcesby expanding community forestry programme of the government. Such an implementationwould not give sufficient leeway for earning livelihoods in the beginning until the forestresources reach at its maximum yield. Therefore, some provision of income generatingactivities should be implemented with the community forestry programme that will help in thealleviation of poverty and food insecurity in a sustainable manner.

Number of Income Sources

Preceding analysis suggests that vulnerable communities have very limited income earningoptions, and many of these options are not again open in the abnormal years. Figure 6.3shows the range of income sources of the vulnerable groups across the surveyed communities.Excluding Far-West Mountain and Flood prone East and Central Terai, the number of incomesources ranges from two to six in all the other clusters. The modal number for the country isfour, as seven of the 15 district clusters have only four income sources. Excluding FloodProne East and Central Terai, all the other clusters have three to five modal sources ofincome. The modal number for the flood prone cluster is only two sources showing theirincome sources as less diversified and therefore their more vulnerable status. The four modalsources of income are: agriculture, agriculture wage labour, seasonal migration, and thenporterage or some other occupation.

By region, there is some difference in the number of sources of income. In terms of number ofincome sources, the situation of terai people is poor as compared to the hill and mountainpeople. Most of the hill district clusters have five sources of income. In fact, three out of the59 groups in Terai have only one income source and that is agriculture wage labour. Thesegroups are from Sarlahi and Parsa districts of the flood-prone district cluster. One of the

reasons for few number of income sources in the Terai could be the easy availability ofworking as wage labour, because of larger agricultural operation there and easy access to

Figure 6.3: Range of Income Sources and Modal Number of Income Sources

0123456789

10

East M

ounta

in and

Hill

East H

ill with

Cash Crop

sEa

st Tera

i

Mounta

in Tou

rist D

istricts

East S

iwalik Reg

ion

Flood

-pron

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and C

entral

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Centra

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alaya

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47

India, compared to hill and mountain. But such an opportunity makes difficult to the poorestof the poor during disasters such as flood when they can not get work as agriculture labour inthe community or surrounding communities, and are not able to go to outside the country forwork.

Figure 6.3 shows the number of income sources during a normal year. But the income earningoptions open to people tend to move together during crises. For example, extreme floodsaffected farm income as well as income from labour to the people of Bhujahawa ofNawalparasi districts, as they were not able to get agricultural employment because of water-logging in the fields prohibiting rice plantation or any other type of agricultural activities.Similarly, excess rain affects non-farm income from portering goods and services due to thecancellation of plane service or destruction of roads because of landslides in hills andmountain. These infer that income of people become less during the crisis year as comparedto the normal year, and therefore unless they are given some other earning options it isdifficult for them to survive.

Mitigating Risks through Insurance

Self-Insurance Mechanisms

Households insure themselves by accumulating assets in good times and drawing on them inbad times. There is lack of insurance market in rural areas of Nepal, and therefore poor peoplehave to rely on self-insurance or other informal insurance as there is little chance of formalinsurance. The magnitude of self-insurance depends on their level of income, proportion ofincome spent on food vis a vis non-food items, and a host of other factors. Following sectionsdeal with these aspects of self insurance.Figure 6.4 presents the range of annual income of the vulnerable and food insecure groups,and their median income by district clusters.10 Excluding West Terai, the range is not that

wide in other district clusters. The wider range in the West Terai is due to very high incomeas recorded by its two vulnerable groups. However, the median income of the groups are 10 The income reported here the income for the households with some land, andtherefore the income of groups consisting landless is not reported here.Income of one of the vulnerable groups in Kailali district of Mid- and Far-West of Terai cluster was found very high and implausible and therefore,this was taken as outlier. Thus, the figure reports only the income of the159 vulnerable groups.

Figure 6.4: Range of Average Annual Income

0

20000

40000

60000

80000

100000

120000

140000

160000

East M

ounta

in an

d Hill

East H

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west H

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48

Figure 6.5: Percent of Communities Reporting Any Erosion and Erosion in All Places

0 20 40 60 80 100 120



East Terai


East Siwalik Region

Flood-prone East and Central Terai

Central Mountain and Hill

North-west Hill

South-west Hill

West Terai


Mid-west Hill

Far-west Mountain

Far-west Hill

Mid-and Far-west Terai

Nepal

Community with Erosion Community with Erosion in All Places

around Rs 25, 000 even in this district cluster, implying that majority of the groups have lessincome.

Of particular note is that the median income of groups does not widely diverge, and hoversaround Rs 20,000 in most of the vulnerable groups. It ranges from Rs. 11,261 in North-WestHill to Rs 36,103 in Far-West Mountain. The median income in two clusters, viz, CentralMountain and Hill and Far-West Mountain was found somewhat higher as compared to otherdistrict clusters. However, on the whole, the median income for the country is little more thanRs 20,000 which is significantly less than the mean income of Rs 26,432, implying that thereis unequal distribution of income among the vulnerable groups, with most of the groups havelittle income. Considering national average household size as 5.6 persons, the annual meanhousehold income of Rs 26,432 yields Rs 4,732 as the annual per capita income of thevulnerable population of the current survey which is less than the recently defined thresholdincome of US$ 77 for the national poverty line. This indicates that population of thevulnerable groups is lying below the recently defined poverty line for the country.

Figure 6.4 shows the level of income of those vulnerable households who have some land.There are various reasons for low level of income such as low agricultural production due topoor and deteriorating soil fertility which, in turn, is due to soil erosion and lack of manure,and lack of employment opportunities, among others.

The soil of Terai is the most fertile and suitable for the agricultural cultivation, whereas thatof mountain is the least fertile and is not appropriate for the agricultural cultivation. It takeslonger time for cultivating crops in mountain because of the cool and humid climate leadingto a longer period for crop.

Because of the rugged topography, soil erosion is the main problem in hill and mountain partsof the country. The excessive rain erodes topsoil resulting into further decline in soil fertility.In order to maintain productivity, farmers manure fields through the use of farmyard manureand forest leaves and litters. But because of the decrease in forest resources and lack of freeaccess to forest and increase in cropping intensity as compared to before farmers are not thatmuch able to maintain soil fertility today.

Figure 6.5 shows percent ofcommunities reporting soilerosion. Out of the 65surveyed communities, 80percent reported that theyhave soil erosion problem.The problem of soil erosionis less severe in the Terai ascompared to the hills andmountains.

As to the enquiry thatwhether land erosion isuniversal or occurs in thelimited places of thecommunities, 60 percentcommunities reported that itis universal problemoccurring all over thecommunity. It is reported


49

Figure 6.6: Percent of Communities Reporting Types of Measures Taken to Control Erosion

No measures possible

Bunding

Increase height of bund

Flow excess water throughsmall pass

Tree plantation

Embankment

Other

occurring in all places of the surveyed communities of four district clusters.

Figure 6.6 reports measures undertaken by communities to control soil erosion. Some formsof bunding or tree plantation havebeen reported as controllingmeasures. Overall, about 42percent community of the countryreported bunding, five percentembankment and 20 percentsuggested increase in height ofbunds in order to control theproblem. Tree plantation asmeasure of controlling soilerosion has been reported in 26percent of the communities.Besides 18 percent reportedmaking water flow slowly throughone small pass so that topsoil is not swept away.

Level of consumption varies according to crop calendar and cropping pattern in thevulnerable communities of Nepal. The cropping pattern of the three regions is given in Table6.2. Summer crops are major crops in all the regions of the country. Among winter crops,wheat in the Terai has a dominant share in cereals and therefore has major implication forfood security there. Summer crops, such as maize and paddy in the hill and paddy in the Teraiare harvested around September. Thus, level of consumption of households is better duringSeptember to December mainly in the hill and mountain. Then, millet is harvested in Octoberand November which further supports one to two months. Thus, since March most of the foodinsecure households face food shortages in the hills and mountains.

Table 6.2Cropping Pattern of Three Regions

Mountain Hill TeraiKhet (Lowland)

June/July to Nov/Dec – paddy.Dec/Jan to April/May – wheat.March/April to June/July–maizeor winter paddy.

Bari(Upland)

April/May to Aug/Sept – maize.Aug/Sept to Dec/Jan – millet.Dec/Jan to March/April –fallow.

Khet (Low land)

June/July to Oct/Nov – Paddy.Oct/Nov to Dec/Jan – Fallow.Dec/Jan to May/June – Potato.

Bari(Upland)

Feb/March to July/Aug – Maize.(Inter-cropping with millet or legume in plantedmaize in June/July).June/July to Oct/Nov – millet.Oct/Nov to Feb/March – oilseed or fallow.Nov/Dec to Aug/Sept – potato or Oct/Nov toFeb/March – oilseed so that people can cultivatemaize. Thus if potato is cultivated then there isno possibility of cultivating maize.

June/July to Sept/Oct–Paddy.Sept/Oct to Apr/May- Rabicrops including sugarcane.But if sugarcane is plantedthen there is no riceplantation in the followingyear.

In case of Terai, level of food consumption is higher among the food insecure householdsfrom September to December. Then during winter they have some shortages. But once wintercrops are ready their situation improves but only for two to three months, from March to May.Thus, the rainy season (June/July to Aug/Sept) is the food shortage season in all thecommunities across the three regions when the level of the consumption is low.

Foodgrain prices also vary with their harvesting period. During harvesting and post-harvesting period their prices are low. The prices of most of the foodgrains are higher during


50

Figure 6.8: Proportion of Food Expenditure during Abnormal Year

0

10

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and H

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MinMax

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the food shortage period, i.e, June/July to Aug/Sept. Thus, food insecure households sufferfrom higher prices as they have to pay higher prices of foodgrains. On the other hand, pricesof livestock which they sell are less during this season because their greater supply in relationto demand as not many outside traders come to buy in the communities during rainy season.

It is generally thought that poor people spend more than 70 percent of the expenditure onfood. The current survey investigated into the proportion of the total expenditure spent onfood and non-food items by 192 vulnerable groups of 65 communities of 19 survey districts,and reports the share of food expenditure to total expenditure for normal and abnormal yearsin figures 6.7 and 6.8.

Overall, more than two-thirds of the total expenditure is spent on food items by the vulnerablegroups in Nepal during normal year. There is little variation in the proportion of food

Figure 6.7: Proportion of Food Expenditure during Normal Year

0102030405060708090

100

East M

ounta

in and

Hill

East H

ill with

Cash Crop

sEa

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istricts

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iwalik Reg

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Flood

-pron

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and C

en...

Centra

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nd Hill

North-w

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Far-w

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Min

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51

Figure 6.9 : Proportion of Food Expenditure during Normal and Abnormal Years

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90



East Terai


East Siwalik Region

Flood-prone East and Central Terai

Central Mountain and Hill

North-west Hill

South-west Hill

West Terai


Mid-west Hill

Far-west Mountain

Far-west Hill

Mid-and Far-west Terai

Nepal

Abnormal Year

Normal Year

expenditure by region, and even by district clusters, excluding some district clusters such asEast Hill with Cash Crops and Mid and Far West hill and Far-West Mountain. The proportionhovers around 70 percent in most of the district clusters. As compared to normal year, theproportion of food expenditure in abnormal year increases. The proportion lies between 70 to80 percent for most of the district clusters, and for the whole Nepal it is three-fourths of thetotal expenditure. The range of food expenditure is wide in 50 percent of the district clusters,and the average expenditure lies between 70 to 80 percent in all but two clusters (Figure 6.8).

The difference between the proportion of food expenditure during normal and that duringabnormal year is generally higher in mountain and in Mid-west and Far-west region of thecountry, which implies further vulnerability of these regions. In particular, the discrepanciesbetween them is higher in Karnali Transhimalaya, and Far-west hill and Mountain(Figure6.9).

The problem of soil erosion, and lack of forest-based litters for manuring field, and theconsequent low agricultural production and low level of income, the inability of food insecuregroups to feed their family members throughout normal year from their income sources, thedistress sale of livestock and other assets, and the larger proportion of resources used for foodconsumption limit the possibility of accumulating assets by the poor households. The mostcommon option for accumulating assets is raising animals, but it has been found in ChapterIV that compared to food secure households a smaller proportion of food insecure householdshave livestock, and again these households have generally smaller livestock. As raising largerlivestock requires a high initial investment for the poors, they adopt share cropping; butdecreasing forest resources and lack of free access to forest resources for fodder with theimplementation of the community forestry programme has worsening the capacity of the poorfor mitigating risks through the self insurance such as from raising animals.


52

Moreover, as compared to normal year the proportion of the expenditure spent on foodduring abnormal year increases. This together with the use of whatever livestock is there forthe household consumption during abnormal years, further erode their possibility of comingout of poverty and debt trap. This warrants for initiating some income generating activities forthe poor and food insecure people so that they can be able to effectively mitigating the effectsof risks, and come above the poverty line.

Informal Insurance Mechanisms

Households also use group-based mechanisms of informal risk sharing that rely on the socialcapital of groups of households. Typically, informal insurance involves a mutual supportnetwork of members of a community sharing similar characteristics in terms of ethnicity,relatives or friends or similar occupations. For example, there are traditional systems ofParma and Dhikuri which are used to help community members through the exchange oflabour and through the share of mutual funds generated from group members. However, thetraditional systems of networks are disappearing, and a more formal set of groups are formedunder different interventions by GOs and NGOs. Some of these groups are organised not onlyimplementing and sustaining the activities implemented by a organisation but also collectingfunds or undertaking saving and credit operations. These networks are effective only againstshocks common to some members but not all. Thus, in case of crisis, these networks could nothelp much unless the community has different types of networks and organisations.

Different forms of user groups were found existing in the survey communities, such as thosebelonging to community forestry, drinking water and other infrastructures. However, majorityof them do not belong with saving and credit operation because of the problems thatcommunity members do not opt or lack the capability of financial contribution to raise thegroup funds. In fact, past experience reveals that it is very difficult to implement developmentintervention, and again it is more difficult for the poorest of the poor, and therefore there islack of effective groups sufficient for undertaking and mitigating the effects of naturaldisaster in the surveyed communities. Moreover, such formed groups are not sustainable;once the programme is phase out they disappear. In view of this, there is a need for formingand sustaining groups and running some income generating activities or the activities whichbuild the productive capacity of the communities. Under RCIW, WFP/Nepal has beenimplementing some micro initiatives which could help community to mitigate the effects ofsuch shocks but there is need for further enhanced implementation of these activities. Thiscall for partnering with other organisations such as GTZ at the moment for the effectiveimplementation of such initiatives and for sustaining groups.

6.4 COPING WITH SHOCKS

Food insecure and vulnerable households in Nepal have been defined by their communitymembers as being resource poor, in terms of human, natural, and productive physical assets.For those most insecure, that fact suggests little to fall back on as a buffer during times ofmore acute hardship.

The major asset among the food insecure and vulnerable households is their own labor. As aresult, the focus of coping efforts, and their strength, seems to rely on labor responses and, inparticular, efforts to diversify sources of income. The data in Table 6.3 do not show asignificant change in the overall range of income sources between normal and abnormalyears, supporting the general understanding that coping behaviors are typically extensions andintensifications of economic activities undertaken under normal conditions. Information onthe share of income derived from each source in normal and abnormal years is still beingprocessed.


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Table 6.3Frequency of Income Sources Reported by Assessment Settlements in “Normal” and “Abnormal” Years

Mountain Hill TeraiIncome Sources Normal Abnormal Normal Abnormal Normal AbnormalAgricultureWage LabourAnimalPorteringSmall Trading ActivitiesOccupation by CasteFishingSkilled LabourWorking OutsideCommunityBamboo BasketryService/PensionSale offirewood/herbs/blanketBonded LabourSale of LandForest-based foodsBorrowing

100.095.778.352.243.534.813.013.021.78.78.726.14.34.38.78.7

95.7100.087.060.943.534.813.017.426.18.78.739.14.38.717.460.9

100.090.590.533.323.838.19.557.14.823.89.50.00.00.019.047.6

100.090.590.533.328.638.19.557.19.523.89.50.00.00.019.057.1

95.295.290.54.819.04.814.319.09.50.09.59.50.00.09.519.0

95.2100.090.54.819.04.814.328.633.30.09.514.30.00.014.357.1

Total Communities 23 23 21 21 21 21

The data in Table 6.3 indicate that, in the mountains, slightly more households engage inportering and other wage labor, the sale of animals for income, migration outside thecommunity, the sale of firewood, food (for own consumption as well) and herbs collected inthe forest, and borrowing. In the hill communities, the only changes between normal andabnormal years appears to be a slight increase in households migrating outside the communityto look for work and small trading activities and, again, borrowing. For households in theTerai, migration seems to be the primary income coping response among households, inaddition to greater recourse to local wage labor, the sale of firewood, food and herbs collectedin the forest, and borrowing.


54

Box 6.2: Eating Less Preferred Foods: Examples

Most people of the surveyed communities ofArghakhanchi district lived on eating fried mustardseed, and some other prepared food by mixing nettles(about 4 kg) with half kg barley.People ate locust in order to survive from the crisis inthose communities of Kaulechaur of Arghakhanchiand Dharapani of Surkhet districts where these locustsdestroyed their maize and paddy.People of Thargaun, Yanfudanda and Sowoka ofDiding VDC, Sankhuwasabha district prepared homebrewed liquor (Janda) from forest-based items such asGittha and Bhyakur (tubers) and from banana root and

Only forest-based items were eaten inGwani of Darchula district during therecent drought.People of Syanda (Vyansi community)of Humla district had to live on theforest-based items such as nettle duringthe 1999 drought when the drought

Eating Less Preferred Foods

Collection of Wild Foods

Limiting Portion Size

Sale of Small LivestockBorrowing

Skipping MealsSale of large livestock

Demeaning JobsContract Labor

Seasonal MigrationChange Occupation

Long Term Migrat.

Sale of Land

Time

Figure 6.10: Coping Strategies

Reversibility

The surveyed communities pointed out a number of coping mechanisms adopted after shockswhich involve increased hours of labour and eating less preferred and cheap foods, but if theyfail to get employment they start cashing in their insurance: selling livestock or other assets,or calling support from community, government and non-government organisations. If theabove supports fails then they seasonally migrate and/or sell their land and other fixed assets.A typical set of coping mechanisms adopted in some district clusters is given in Figure 6.10.

Eating Less Preferred Foods

People eat less preferredfoods such as breadmade of husk, nettle,food grains from NepalFood Corporation whichis usually of lowquality, millet andmaize instead of rice,nettle or green leavesmixing with little grainsand making porridge,fried mustard andbroken rice, etc.

The forest-based items are supplementedwith some other food grains such as cornflour and millet bread. In fact, eating forest-based products with grain prevails one tothree months in many communities,


55

Box 6.3: Collection and Sale of Forest Resources: Some Examples

• People in Panchan of Solukhumbu District also collected Ghorla leaves (formaking cigarette) and sell during crisis.

• People of Amarans of Solukhumbu suffered from the four times halistorm ofthe 2000, and the drought of 1999 and 2000 and adopted the strategy ofcollecting log and processing them for building houses. Moreover, they alsoearned their livelihoods from building houses. Some of them also engaged insawing log in Salleri, the district headquarters.

• Some people of Kulalwada of Jumla district recalled that they suffered frompaddy diseases during 1998 and 1999 and therefore they had to go to forestwalking five hours to collect and sell firewood in order to buy rice from theNepal Food Corporation at the subsidized price.

• Excessive rainfall in 1999 resulted into famine in Hepka community of Humladistrict, and to cope the situation, people had to collect and sell herbs calledKatuki in order to buy foodgrains.

• Guruwagaon and Chamar Tole of Banke district also survived from thecollection of forest-based food items during the 1950 and 1960 drought when

especially hills and mountain of Nepal. However, at the time of severe crisis people are boundto depend on the forest-based items, and whatever foodstuff is available at home like milk orfruit which they are not able to sell.

Collection and Sale of Forest-based Products

This is a traditional strategy which was more dependable in the earlier days in manycommunities of the hills and mountains when there was free access to forest resources beforethe implementation of community forestry. However, it is still one of the main strategiesadopted in most of the communities, especially those of hills and mountain. Some field-basedillustrations are shown in Box 6.3.

Limiting Portion Size

Limiting the quantity of food occurs in different ways such as eating half stomach, eating fullstomach but with less content of foodstuff such as watery porridge, or eating only onceinstead of three meals, which was followed by people of Sahajpur of Kailali district. People ofChnaganfaya of Humla district had to divide the grain sufficient for one meal to two mealsduring the 1999 drought. Such coping strategies are generally adopted when there is no work.

Mothers in hills of Nepal deliberately limit their own intake in order to ensure that theirchildren get enough to eat. Such maternal buffering is done during three to four months of ayear just preceding the monsoon or during the early monsoon when maize is not ready for theharvest and there is lack of food in the vulnerable households of the hills. But in case of theTerai this also occurs during the period of plantation when mothers have to do hard work,which affects severely their health.

Sale of Small Livestock and Drawing down Seed Reserves


56

Box 6.4: Borrowing during Disasters: Some Examples

Affected by the storm of July 1999, most of the households of Dharapanicommunity of Surkhet district have to borrow around Rs 10,000 to buyfoodgrains and later they went to Kalapahad of India in order to pay the loan.

Saving life becomes the first priority of the people and therefore they converttheir productive loans into consumptive ones such as the people ofArghakhanchi district who had taken loan from the Small Farmers DevelopmentProgramme, and many of them could not pay such loan because of the lack ofemployment opportunity.

People of Seselmu and Amarans of Solukhumbu district had to borrow in order to perform thecremation ceremony of the people died of measles and diarrhoea. The death of the able-bodiedworkers hard hit some of the households of these communities. Some people had sold livestockand land and migrated out.

The scheduled caste settlement of Bagahi VDC, Parsa district had to borrow loan for thecremation of their family members died of diarrhoea during 1997 disaster.

The animal epidemic of 1963 occurred in Changanfaya of Humla district resulted into loss of

Drawing down seed reserves is adopted when the sale of small livestock could not mitigatedisaster effect. If the use of seed reserves could not solve the problem then they borrow or selllarge livestock or adopt other strategies depending on portfolio of the particular households.

Borrowing Food or Money

Borrowing food from neighbours, friends and relatives or borrowing money to buy food isvery common coping mechanism practised every year in all the vulnerable communities inNepal, especially by poor and disadvantaged people. This strategy is common when there aresome households in the vulnerable community who are able to lend to the others. Theimportant ramification of this is the situation where poor wage labourers borrow from theirlandlords in advance. But when there are not many people in the community with the surplusfood then the food insecure households have to visit other places for asking loan to buyfoodgrains. Sometimes, even middle class people go for this alternative to cope up with thesituation

There are different types of borrowing based on the source of borrowing and the amount ofloan, which depends on the intensity and duration of food crisis. People generally do not haveto borrow if it is a mater of few days as they can run households by selling livestock or othersmall household assets. But if they do not have these assets then they have to borrow for ashort run and such borrowing is generally done within the community. But for long-term loanthey have to turn to local moneylenders at higher rate of interest.

Borrowing is done not only for ensuring food security but also for buying draft power andcremation and other related ceremonies when people are died of any diseases (Box 6.4). Somepeople of some Mid- and Far-West districts bought draft power taking loan which they paid inthe agriculturally off season by working in the other places such as in Kalapahad of India.Animal epidemic also causes people to borrow loan in order to fulfil the food demand.

Skipping Meals


57

Box 6.5: Skipping Meals: Some Examples

The people of Bagahi of Parsa district eat food in the latemorning or early afternoon to avoid hunger in the daytimeduring the period of food crisis.

The hailstorm of 1999 May occurred in Chnaganfaya ofHumla destroyed barley and Uwa crops and therefore somepeople had to borrow and some others had to skip meals inorder to survive.

The scheduled caste settlement of the Panchrukhi VDC of

Generally, there is atradition of takingthree meals in most ofthe communities:brunch in the morning;snack in the afternoon;and dinner in thenight. There is lack offood during April toJuly in the hills andduring May to themiddle of Septemberin the Terai region ofNepal. During thisperiod skipping one of the three meals is a rule rather than exception among the vulnerablepopulation. Skipping meals, especially supper or replacing supper by just snacks is also done.Evidences abound which show that people have to skip meals (Box 6.5).

Adult members of households have to skip meals for the whole day when they fail to managefoodgrains during a crisis. Skipping meal for whole day is the last alternative to cope up withthe food shortage and this is seen in Syanda and Simikot of Humla, Chandannath of Jumla,and Bagahi of Parsa districts.

Other short -Term Strategies

It has been also found that during the time of crisis, some people adopt their occupation asdefined by their castes in order to earn income and mitigate the effects of disasters. Affectedby drought in Patharwang of Arghakhanchi district, minstrel went for begging by singing;blacksmith made bomboo basketry, ropes and rope mats for sale; and tailors went to theirlandlords for collecting their fixed remuneration in advance.

In order to mitigate the effects of crisis, women also go for outside work. For example,women from Hagam of Sindhupalchok district go to Kathmandu, women of Bhimtar ofSindhupalchok district dig others’ field as wage labour, and women of Prangbung ofPanchthar district break stone and collect sands from river for the construction works.Working of women as wage labour is not common in all castes other than the disadvantagedones. Women of the upper castes work only when there is severe crisis.

Working Demeaning or Illegal Jobs

Trespassing of firewood and other forest-based products are done in order to fight against thefood crisis. Community people generally did not mention such illegal jobs. However, it hasbeen found that the declaration of Arghakhanchi district as dry zone in 1998 prohibited peopleto produce and consume alcohol, but people were engaged in this activity. Communitypeople mentioned that they were able to prepare and sell liquor illegally because police didnot turn up in their village because of the fear of the Maoists.

The community people of Kaulechaur of Arghakhanchi district pointed implementation of theCommunity Forestry Programme in 1995 as the risk, which affected the lives of firewoodcollectors. However, some started stealing wood and some diverted to wage labour.Sale of Other Items and Begging


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Box 6.6: Disasters Leading to Migration: SomeExamples

• Suffered from the continuous natural disastersand diarrhoea, some people of Panchan ofSolukhumbu district have to sell their land andto move in other communities.

• The Kudawa community of Banke district hasbeen suffering from the river cutting each yearsince 1954. Realizing this problem thegovernment has provided a piece of land forhouse construction in the other VDC of thesame district. The people will migrate to theVDC.

• The Mushahar and Chamar settlement ofHaripur VDC of Sarlahi district suffered fromcholera occurred in 1981. About eight peopledied and 90 percent of the settlement affected.They had to borrow even for medicine. Most

Selling utensils, especially the larger ones, is taken as a strategy when there is no way out forsolving the problem such as from the wage labours and sell of livestock. Besides, other itemsthat are used in their households are also sold. For example, in Chandannath of Jumla districtpeople also sold blanket of their personal use in order to mitigate the effect of crisis. Beggingis usually done by lower castes during crisis. This is very prominent in Gokuleshor ofDarchula District and Dandaphaya of Humla district.

Working as Contract Labour

Here contract labour is defined as a contract between a landlord and a labourer so that thelatter is restricted to work in the landlord’s house for the period of the contract. Its extreme isthe bonded labour which implies a situation when a person his families are not allowed towork in other houses such as that exited in the five Mid- and Far-western Terai districts of theNepal before the recent abrogation of Bonded labour system in the country. However, thesystem of bonded labour has recently been declared as illegal by the government. There issome form of contract labour in the hills as well as in the Terai. But its extreme form was notnoticed.

Migration

Suffering from continuousdisasters, some households ofsome survey communities soldtheir fixed properties andmigrated permanently to otherplaces. However, the case ofpermanent migration is notusual. But what is usual is theseasonal migration where manypeople go to work in India inorder to earn their livelihoods. Itis not only the hill and themountain people but also theTerai people go to work inIndia. But there is differencebetween the hill and the Teraipeople. The hill people go for alonger period whereas the Teraipeople go many times in yearwhenever they do not have workopportunities in theircommunities or surroundingtheir communities. The Teraipeople also go for work as agricultural labourer especially in Punjab and Haryana of India.Besides India, men often migrate to urban areas like Kathmandu, Narayanghat, Pokhara,Birgunj, etc of the country. Also, they go to other third countries especially in Arabiancountries. The increasing seasonal migration of Terai population working as agriculturallabour in India implies that the condition of people is worsening or there is lack ofemployment opportunity even in the Terai parts of the country.


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Box 6.7: Some Examples of Severe Capital-Based Strategies

• The households of Majhare, Laxmaniya andBhimpur of Morang district suffered fromdrought in 1980 and from floods in 1993 to1995, and therefore they could not producepaddy and wheat. As a result, some sold theirdraft power and ornaments and few othersold their land. Some other went to othercountries for earning. But majority copedthrough working as wage labour. Some hadto eke out their living by taking loan fromSajha (co-operative) office.

As an outstandingexample, the 1988earthquake completelydestroyed houses ofthree households andpartially destroyedhouses of 8 householdsof Waku-5 ofSolukhumbu district.These households got

Sale of Fixed Properties

Capital-based strategies of themediocre type include a) sale ofcow, buffalo, pig and other biganimals; b) sale of draft power;and c) mortgage of land, crop orother properties or productiveassets. This is practised rarely andis done when the crisis is severe.The most severe capital-basedstrategies include sale of fixedproperties such as land and housewhich is the last insurance usedfor the households that ultimatelylead some households to movepermanently from their village.Reliance on Community

Nepalese are rich in tradition and culture and there are stillsome practices such Parma and Dhikuri which help people tosurvive against any calamities. Examples abound when somehouseholds suffer from any natural calamity that losses cropor houses or the lives of people. In such a situation the entirehouseholds of the community contribute grain and free labourto build house or to plant that help the sufferers to fightagainst the risks. However, such self-help exist in remoteareas but has run into oblivion in the less remote areas wherethe modern intervention has created individualistic feeling incommunities.

Formal Mechanisms

People have also received help from different government and non-government organisationsafter the crisis. These mainly include Nepal Red Cross Society (NRCS), Chief District Officer(CDO) office, Lions Club, District Development Committee (DDC) and VDC office duringthe time of severe disasters. During the time of earthquake, NRCS has distributed food as wellas cloths to the victims of disasters in many communities. Similarly, community people alsoapproached to VDC, DDC and CDO office during such crisis and received some help fromthese organisations. However, such help are generally given when there is natural disasterssuch as earthquake, floods or epidemic. Some of the examples of such assistance given bydifferent GOs and NGOs are illustrated in Box 6.8.


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Box 6.8: Assistance Extended from GOs and NGOs: Some Field Illustrations

• People of Diding VDC received 40 kg wheat from government during the drought of 1991.• A financial aid of Rs 5,000 was given to two households whose houses were destroyed from the

landslides in Seselmu of Solukhumbu district during 1999. Similarly during the earthquake of 1998 somehousehold received Rs 5,000 to 10,000 help in order to build their houses and also received 20 kg ricefrom the government.

• During the storm of 1995, each household of Kamati Tole of Morang district received Rs 300 help.• People of Majhare, Laxmaniya and Bhimpur received some help during the 1988 earthquake.• People of Chhenda Tole of Sarlahi district suffered from the flood occurred in 1993. It swept away about

4 hectare land and six houses. These households received help from DDC, which included plastic,blanket, clothes, and utensils.

• People of Bhadsar of Sarlahi district suffered from the 1996 flood. About 500 households were affected.They received sugar, beaten rice, kerosene oil and salt and utensil from NRCS, Rs 1000 per householdhelp for 11 families from the HMGN.

• The flood affected people from Thori of Parsa district received help from lions club in 1998 and Rs 625from CDO office and 35 kg foodgrain from Nepal Food Corporation in 1999.

• 62 houses of Kudawa of Banke district were destroyed during the fire in 1991. All the livestock and otherproperties of these houses were destroyed. NRCS distributed beaten rice and clothes to each of theaffected families. Government Forest Office provided 40 cubic feet log to each affected family to buildhouses. But they did not get any help in another fire set in 1996 when 25 houses were destroyed.

• Guruwagaon and Chamar Tole of Banke also received help from NRCS and DDC during the 1989 fire butthey did not receive such help during 1958 fire. However, people managed to live because it was theseason of paddy harvest.

• People of Surja Tole, Sahajpur of kailali district suffered from the epidemic in 1998, which killed all theirgoats. However, they worked in the RCIW programme of WFP and earned their livelihood.

• There is lack of availability of food in the remote inaccessible districts like Humla, Dolpa and Jumlawhere government provides food at the subsidized price. There is food rationing all over the year. Forexample, one family get 10 kg rice each month at the subsidized price.

6.5 SUMMARY

This chapter does not explain formal mechanisms adopted by HMGN for risk reduction.However, there is not effective use of the health institutions, agriculture service centres andveterinary centres established by the government because of the lack of roads linking to suchservice centres and lack of awareness of the people, among others. This suggests that in orderto effectively reduce risks, especially human, animal and plant diseases, and some naturaldisasters like drought, construction of infrastructures including roads and irrigation andprovision of market facilities is necessary. Moreover, creation of awareness about health andhygiene is also important for preventing or reducing risk and making people visits healthposts regularly.

There are very limited earning options for the people. Majority of the rural population stilldepends on agriculture, and agriculture productivity is not increasing because of the naturaldisasters such as floods, landslides, drought. Moreover, lack of manure due to decrease inanimal husbandry and lack of free access to forest coupled with natural disasters have affectedagricultural productivity.

The problem of soil erosion, and lack of forest-based litters for manuring field, and theconsequent low agricultural production and low level of income, the inability of the foodinsecure groups to feed their family members throughout normal year from their incomesources, the distress sale of livestock and other assets, and the larger proportion of resourcesused for food consumption limit the possibility of accumulating assets by the poorhouseholds. The most common option for accumulating assets is raising animals, but it hasbeen found in the preceding chapter (Chapter IV) that compared to food secure households a


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In some of the communities, allfamily members eat together, forexample: dancer or Bhandcommunities of Darchuladistrict; Magar, Rai and lowercastes like Majhi and Kami ofPanchthar, Udayapur, Surkhetand Morang districts. Both male

smaller proportion of food insecure households have livestock, and again these householdshave generally smaller livestock. As the raising of larger livestock requires a high initialinvestment for the poors, they adopt share cropping; but the decreasing of forest resources andlack of free access to forest resources for fodder with the implementation of the communityforestry programme has worsening the capacity of the poor for mitigating risks through theself insurance such as from raising animals.

There are limited coping measures adopted by the poor and food insecure people. Theseranges from working as labourer in the country or going to India, to collection and sale offorest-based products, to sale of household properties, and ultimately to sale of fixedproperties and migration. As there is lack of diversification of income sources, and lack ofinsurance mechanism due to lack of saving, the animal serves as the main cushion to copewith disasters apart from the forest-based resources and basic assets of human labour of thepoor and food insecure households. The informal insurance mechanism are on the decreasingtrend because of the modernisation.

Different forms of user groups were found existing in the survey communities, such as thosebelonging to community forestry, drinking water and other infrastructures. However, majorityof them do not belong with the saving and credit operation because of the problems thatcommunity members do not opt or lack the capability of financial contribution to raise thegroup funds. Moreover, such formed groups are not sustainable; once the programme is phaseout they disappear. In view of this, there is a need for forming and sustaining groups andrunning some income generating activities or the activities which will build the productivecapacity of the communities. Under RCIW, WFP/Nepal has been implementing some microinitiatives which could help community to mitigate the effects of such shocks but there isneed for further enhanced implementation of these activities. This call for partnering withother organisations such as GTZ at the moment for the effective implementation of suchinitiatives and for sustaining groups.

CHAPTER VII

FOOD SECURITY AND GENDER

7.1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter draws on the fieldwork carried out in 19 districts of the country in order to assessvulnerability and food security status of women, and is divided broadly into: intra-householdfood security, access to household resources and work burden.

7.2 INTRA HOUSEHOLD FOOD SECURITY

In order to assess food adequacy among women, group discussion of women was conductedon three themes: order of eating, number of daily meals and limiting food by women forfeeding their children.

Order of eating food differs by age, sex, and caste and ethnicity. However, across the sampleddistricts and communities, there is a striking similarity in the order of eating: small childreneat first and then men followed by women. Children eat first because they feel hungry fastand have to go to school early in the morning and go to bed early in the night.

In Aryan families, a rule in the order of eating isfollowed: men eat before women; and amongwomen there is hierarchy: senior women eat beforejunior women; sister-in-laws, elder co-sisters eat


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Some poor people do notget even two meals a dayduring the food insufficientmonths and duringagriculturally off seasonwhen there are noemployment opportunities.They take food in the latemorning or early afternoonto avoid hunger pranks in

before daughter-in law. Generally, youngest daughter-in-law looks after kitchen and eats last.Across all the communities, it has been found that cook eats last which is natural. There is nostrict order of eating in the disadvantaged castes as both male and female members have towork outside for running their family.

The reasons advanced on the women eating last revolve around the fact that it is the womanwho serves as a cook and therefore she has to do all other works, like cleaning, washingutensils etc, that are to be done after all household members finished eating. In somecommunities, the tradition is that women eat leftovers of her husband left on her husband’splate, and if she eats before husband, the food becomes impure. Some women feel satisfied byeating at last, after giving food to everybody. This indicates that, generally women are atdisadvantaged state, who have to eat whatever is left, after food is eaten by all familymembers and guests.

In almost all the surveyed communities, people eat threetimes a day: brunch in the morning, snacks in theafternoon and supper in the night. The afternoon snack isnot compulsory across the communities and households;it is governed by economic condition of family, foodsufficiency and therefore by season and also by amountof work, i.e., agricultural season or not. Very poorpeople of the vulnerable communities take only twomeals a day.

Men of the households with better food sufficiency eat four times a day during theagricultural season. But women who generally do not go for wage labors eat two to threetimes a day since they stay at home and do not have to work outside. However, among thepoor families whose both male and female members work outside, there is not muchdifferentiation.

Irrespective of communities in Terai or hill, children eat more often than elders do. They eatfour or more times and younger children eat as many times as they get to eat. Usually insummer, children and adults eat more than winter because days are longer, and there isenough time for preparing snacks, and summer is also the agricultural season. But this doesnot hold for the school going children who take their morning and evening meals at theirhomes and rarely take snacks at the school.

Women have to limit their food in order to provide adequate food to their children. Itgenerally occurs during food shortage period, for example, during plantation of major crops inAsadh (June/July) and Shrawan (July/August), or just after plantation. During this period,foodgrain stock of previous year gets over and grain of current year is not ready. In the hillswhere maize is the main course of meal, food shortage occurs until the maize is ready foreating. Maize plantation differs across the communities and therefore the period of extremefood shortages varies between Jestha (May/June) to Bhadra (August/September) in the hills.In case of Terai this stretches up to Aswin (September/October) depending on when earlypaddy is ready for harvest.

Women have deep love and affection towards their children, and they feel it is theirresponsibility to feed their children stomach full. They are aware of fact that children areyoung and in growing stage and they need sufficient food. Hence they limit their food to feedthem enough. Even men limit their food to give sufficient food to their children. But, this


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In some communities, pregnantwomen do not know that, theyshould eat rich food for goodgrowth of baby and for their health.Moreover, they say that, they havebad appetite during pregnancy sothey do not feel like eating even anormal food. Also, there istradition of prohibiting some fooditems like honey, sweet and sourthings. Lack of time also prevents

In some Magar communities, itis observed that mother ofnewborn gets gifts from herrelatives and her husband’srelatives, which containschicken, ghee or oil, foodgrains, etc. This is a richtradition practiced by themwhich enable women to takegood deal of food even if shecan not afford by her own.

incidence is rare because men eat before women and most of the women do not reveal the factthat they have to limit their food in order to feed their children adequately.

The preceding explanation infers that women are more food insecure than men at thehousehold level. They eat less and again not frequently as do the men. The level of insecuritydiffers by season and economic condition of family. However, women eat more frequentlyduring agriculture season as compared to other seasons, and off-farm-working women also eatas do their male counterparts. As to the school going children, there is not much genderdiscrimination, but there is some gender discrimination among the children who stay at home.The level of food intake of scholl going children is less than that of those who stay at home.

7.3 FOOD ADEQUACY DURING PREGANCY

Despite additional diet is of utmost importanceduring pregnancy, field work carried in differentparts of the country reveals a odd picture in thatmajority of the communities have not a traditionof giving additional (special) food items. Themain reason for not giving special food is thepoor economic condition of households.However, in some communities, relatives ofpregnant women give them some special food toeat out of love. If mother in-law and husbandsare caring and loving, they arrange for specialfoods somehow, either by borrowing fromneighbors or asking loan from the landlord where husband of pregnant women works.However, some special foods like ghee and oil, chicken and other non-veg food items, spices,green leaves, pulses and legumes, milk and milk product, fruits, etc. are provided to pregnantwomen of better off families in some communities. Some of these items are also provided infew of the poor families to some extent. Some pregnant women of non-Aryan families alsotake home made beer, which is available almost throughout the year. If pregnant women aregetting pain due to weakness, they are given more liquid food and some additional foods likeoil, ghee, chicken, etc.

7.4 FOOD ADEQUACY DURING POST-NATAL PERIOD

Across the communities, post-natal period varies between three to 11 days, according to theeconomic condition, culture and tradition of the families. ‘Nwaran’, or the day of purificationof a newly born baby and mother also varies from community to community or from religionto religion, and it starts from the third day and so on. After this event, the women are pure andcan start working at house. The Nwaran period is decided according to the adequacy ofnumber of able-bodied workers in their families in some communities. Thus, post-natalwomen of better off families and families with large number of able bodied workers are morelikely to stay longer without work and to get served from the other family members.

Unlike during pregnancy, it has been found thatwomen are provided some special foods duringpost-natal period irrespective of their economiccondition across the all districts. It is of particularnote that very poor households also provide specialfoods like non vegetable food or ghee, oil, rice andpulse if they can not afford non-vegetable food,presumably because poor families are in urgent


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Some food items are prohibitedin some communities due to thepast tradition and belief. Somepeople do not give even saltuntil ten days and non-vegetablefood items until six months ofdelivery. Also, green leaf is notgiven because it is held that itmay induce cold and spoilsbaby’s tummy, and beans and

‘Chhyang’, a home made beer, is givenin some communities like Mainaghat ofNawalparasi district, Pattharkot ofSarlahi district, and Waku ofSolukhumbu district as the people ofthese communities think that it givesenergy and helps in good growth. Somepeople do not give any thing exceptnormal food and some of them givesame food frequently. This is due to

need of works of the post-partum women, and therefore they need quick recovery in theirhealth. Such a practice prevails at least up to Nwaran even by borrowing or taking loan fromtheir neighbors or landlords. Quality and quantity of special food increases according to theeconomic condition of household

The community women mentioned that the reasonfor giving special foods during post-natal period isto overcome weakness after delivery and for theproduction of enough milk for child. Most of thewomen are given special soup and food items madeof various spices and dry fruits.11 All these types oftraditional food items are given so as to produceadequate breast milk and to prevent from cold, andit is believed that the turmeric content in these itemsreduce pain after delivery. Many women drinkhome made beer and liquor made of millet as wellbecause it increases production of breast milk.

7.5 FOOD SECURITY AND CHILDREN

Provision of special foods to children is after all depends on the economic condition offamily, and knowledge and awareness about special foods. However, most of the people givesome thing extra to small children as they know that, children should be given additional foodfor good growth and health. Lito, a common name for special food prepared for childrenwhich is made of flour of grains and legume, rich in protein or carbohydrate is generallygiven in many communities. But, people find time consuming to prepare it, hence many ofthem do not provide it. ‘Jaulo’ (watery porridge) which is generally made of rice and pulsealong with some oil or ghee is given to small children after they start eating rice, and at timesthey are offered soft rice with milk if they do not get other ingredients. Fruits like banana,which is soft, is given to small children and little bigger children are given other fruits also.Haluwa is another food, which is made of wheat or rice flour, or Sugi fried in ghee and mixedwith sugar and water is offered to children.

Now a days, readymade canned, powder milk like Cerelac (brand name) has replaced manyhome made special foods. This is generally used by better off families and families living inthe vicinity of urban areas where such food item is available. This is easy to prepare, henceliked by many people. Even biscuits are given to children by some parents when they areunable to prepare other food due to lack of time.

Milk is generally given to children sincethis is readily available in house orcommunity. If mother’s milk is notsufficient for child or mother can not feedher child due to some genuine reason thenmilk is given to child even by buying it

11 These special food items are made of spices like ‘Jwano’, cumin seed,coriander seed, ginger, turmeric, etc. ‘Harera’, made of ginger, turmeric,spices, jaggary, little chili and wheat flour; ‘Kharau’ made of sugar,spices and chili; ‘Gadi Chhohara’ made of coconut, turmeric, milk and sugar,etc are some other special foods given to such women. Some food items likeroasted garlic, ‘Sounth’, made of rice flour, ginger, black pepper, andjaggary; medicine flour, ‘Sattu’, etc. are also given to post-partum women.


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Because of the patriarchal society,parental assets are kept in thecontrol of men. However, in someMagar and Gurung families whosemale members work in Gurkhaarmy or in similar occupations,there is a tradition of registeringland and other assets in the name ofwomen, which give women legalstatus on the control of such assets

The items on which womenhave control in somehouseholds in most of thecommunities are jewelry,grains and small livestock

from other people or shop. Apart from milk, other special foods are also given, according tothe status of family. People, who can not afford other special foods, give vegetable soup orlentil soup and very poor household provides only starch to their children.

7.6 FOOD MANAGEMENT

Two related questions were asked with women of the FGD participants in the survey: 1) whodecides what types of meal should be prepared and why? ; and 2) who goes for collecting ormanaging food during the period of food scarcity and why?

It is generally the cook herself who decides what dishes are to be prepared. If the cook is anewly married daughter-in-law or if there is special occasion such as festival then she has toask her mother-in-law or the other elderly women of the house. In case of joint family, thecook has to ask the mother-in-law mainly to show respects towards her.

Among the food insecure and vulnerable households, purchase of food also constitutes as themajor source. This purchase is generally made either earning from wage labors or fromborrowing. Traditionally, it is mainly men who borrow and do bulk purchase because ofpatriarchal society and because by traditional division of labor and responsibilities. In manycommunities, the responsibilities of short-term food management lies with women whereasthe long term one with the men. Thus, women turn to their neighbor in order to manage foodfor one or two meals.

It is generally the responsibility of women to collect forest-based food items. At times theytake their children to collect such food items. The women go to collect because the men donot go, or the women think that it is women’s responsibility for short-term food management.However, when forest is very far, or when women have small baby, or when they have to lookafter house, they are not allowed to go. In some households, sometimes men and sometimeswomen go for collecting forest-based foods depending upon who are busy in other householdactivities. Sometimes children are not taken for collecting food when the forest is far, whenthere is rivers on the way to forest, and when there are wild animals dangerous for children.

7.7 ACCESS TO HOUSEHOLD RESOURCES

Control of Assets / Income and Decision Making by Gender

Two questions were put before the FGD women participants: one question was on the controlof assets and other one was who takes decision on purchase and sale of household assets.

Across all the communities, it has been found that generally men control all household assets.The reasons given behind the control of assets by men include:

• Males are the owners of their ancestral property,and are smarter, more knowledgeable and literate.

• The tradition is that women have to look afterdomestic chores, and men have to manage all thehousehold assets.

• Women are generally illiterate.• Men work outside and therefore they earn cash.• Men are generally the household head.

The control over assets varies with source of assets,earner of the assets and by ethnicity. As women wear


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jewellery, they have control over it. With regard to grains, women put more effort in itscultivation and processing as well as managing kitchen, and therefore they have more control.Women are also the main carers of animals. Despite this they have control only on smallanimals.

In most of communities it has been reported that both men and women have control over thehousehold assets because both have put equal efforts to collect and manage the assets. Thishelps in smooth running of family, as there is no conflict between men and women in family.In the Magar and Gurung communities, women have greater stake over the assets ascompared to Indo-Aryan families.

Generally, women are consulted for sale of fixed and immovable properties and largeranimals and income from such sale, but the final say is with men. In case of female headedhouseholds, which is generally in case of widow or in the situation when male member is outfor a long time because of his employment, a female head consults with her son if he is grownup, otherwise with her close relatives regarding the purchase and sale of assets. In case of thesale of grains, women have greater stake because they know better than men about whatamount of grains are to be kept as seeds and what amount for household consumption.

Men have sole control on income from sale of large animals that are generally bought fromthe ancestral property and/or bought from the men’s own earning. Generally, such income isspent at the will of men, and is used to pay generally loan. However, if women have receivedanimals as parental gift then they have some control over the income from the sale of thelivestock. The income is generally used for purchasing household necessities such grains, oiland salt, and also dresses if there is some left. Besides, women also spend little money on thepurchase of some cheap cosmetics, bangles and forehead stickers, earring and necklaces.Women of better off households also buy some jewellery. What proportion of income isspent on the household necessities vis a vis on the women’s necessities depends on whetherthe women is a newly bride or not, economic condition of family, among others.

Marketing

As men are given the responsibility of working outside home, they perform marketing. Someother reasons given are the following:• Men are smarter than women.• Men do not have language problem.• Men are more knowledgeable than women as they have more information on price and

other market condition.

Besides, the biological differences between men and women, the traditional labour divisionbetween male and females and the prevailing tradition and the conditions that created by suchdifferences make marketing as the function of males. For example, men have to performmarketing in the following situations:

• If there is flood• If bulk purchase is to be done from market which is far requiring strength for

transportation• When markets are far

Similarly, following situations arise because of the traditional division of labour, andtherefore male do the marketing:

• It is convenient to buy household necessities while men returning from work• Women have to look after house, kids and animals and children


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The women groups of Bhimtar ofSindhupalchok district, Talium of Jumladistrict, Simikot of Humla district, Gwani ofDarchula district, Phalamkhani of Parbatdistrict, Khanchikot and Pokharathok ofArghakhanchi district, Mantada of Surkhetdistrict, Sakar of Baitadi district, Holiya andBelhari of Banke district, Sahajpur of Kailalidistrict pointed that men look for job during theleisure time. This implies that men lackalternative employment opportunities at theirhomes once they are out of work. The womengroup of Arghakhanchi district said that men

However, the above reasons or conditions also suggest that women also do marketing,especially in the following cases:• If market is nearer• If there is small purchase• If there is need for buying dresses and decorating items• If men are not free

7.8 USE OF LEISURE TIME

It has been asked with the women participants that what they or their male counterparts doduring leisure time. The women groups pointed out a number of activities done by them andtheir male counterparts. It is interesting to note that they think leisure time is the time whenthey do not have difficult works or works which can be done leisurely without followingstrict routine rather than the time when they have no work at all.

During the leisure time men performvarieties of task; some are difficult andsome are light ones. Across thecommunities, it includes making ropes,bamboo baskets, Radi and Pakhi, hookahand Sulpha; collecting fodder, wool andwater; caring animals; and working aswage labor and mason. Some usual tasksthat are to be performed are repairinghomes and cow sheds and caring animals.People of occupational castes who do nothave agriculture as the main occupation,engage more in works defined by theircastes during their leisure time. However, in few communities it has been pointed that somemake fun going for playing football, and in many communities it has been revealed that theyvisit relatives. The women groups of most of the communities of almost all districtsmentioned that men enjoy talking, drinking and playing cards during their leisure time.Generally, winter is relatively free, and therefore people sit around fire. Only few of thewomen groups pointed that men engage in personal hygiene and sanitation and help inhousehold work during their leisure time.

Women perform works similar to those of men. Some of the additional works that theyperform are sewing dresses, washing clothes, cleaning house, breaking wall nut, scrubbingand moping floor and cleaning houses, preparing animal beds, working in kitchen garden.Those who are involved in some user groups also attend meeting. Some of the women groups,from Morang and Nawalparasi districts, pointed that they take care of personal hygiene andsanitation such as cutting nails, bathing their children and themselves, whereas those ofHaripur community of Sarlahi district pointed that they also prepare liquor during their leisuretime. Newly married women go to their parental house, and others visit their relatives andfriends. It is of particular note that as compared to men, women have very little leisure time.Moreover, they do not play cards or roam as the men do.

7.9 SUMMARY

The preceding chapters described who are the food insecure households, where they are andwhy they are food insecure and vulnerable. This chapter focuses on the intra-household food


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security by focusing on food security and gender. It has been found that within households,women, especially the ones who look after the kitchen are food insecure because they eat inthe last, and generally eat the leftovers, and many of them have to limit their portion sizeduring food shortage period for feeding adequately their children. These women are generallyfrom the Indo-Aryan families. The pregnant and lactating mothers who are in the need ofadditional foods are also food insecure as they are not given adequate food during their suchcritical stages of their life. In particular, it has been found that, lactating mothers are givensome special foods such as chicken curry, ghee and rice just after delivery for a period of 3 to11 days depending on the economic condition of the families and the prevailing tradition. Asto the children, school children generally eat two meals a day and eat less than that of the outof the school children of the same family.

The women are food insecure because:

• They lack access to resources;• Their families are poor;• Lack of awareness and deep-rooted tradition which does not take into account the special

needs of the children and expectant and nursing mothers;• The tradition that women should eat later, and among the women the cook should eat last

which is mainly because of the traditional labour division that female should work insidehomes whereas the male should work outside the homes; and

• The thinking that women are not the breadwinners.

The above findings provide a clear implication that the WFP/Nepal should extend its Schoolfeeding and the Maternal and child health projects with increased emphasis on the creation ofawareness.


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CHAPTER VIII

DISCUSSION OF MAJOR FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS

8.1 INTRODUCTION

The food security and vulnerability situation in Nepal has been detailed in the precedingchapters, drawing on secondary and primary information. This chapter initially focuses ondevelopment constraints and opportunities as perceived by surveyed communities acrossthree regions of the country. In order to explain constraints and opportunities, threeinterrelated questions were put before community people of the 65 surveyed communities.They are: a) what are constraints and problems that undermine livelihood of people?, b) Whatneeds to be done in order to uplift living condition of people?, and c) How can communitypeople contribute for their own development? The replies of community people for thesequestions have been marshalled in the following section. The community level priorities arediscussed by pooling the findings of preceding chapters, and based on which some policy andprogramme implications have been advanced in order to hone the WFP efforts in relation toits efficient utilisation of limited resources through improved targeting and designingimproved intervention framework.

8.2 COMMUNITY LEVEL PRIORITIES

Table 8.1 presents constraints and opportunities and Table 8.2 presents their solutionsreported by the communities, for the country as a whole, and for each region separately. Theproblems as outlined by the communities are arranged in descending order of frequency ofcommunities for the country, and then number of communities advancing each as a problemhas been ascertained for each of the three regions separately.

Table 8.1Constraints and Problems of the Communities, by Ecological Regions and Country, Nepal, 2000

Percent of CommunitiesProblems/Constraints

Mountain Hill Terai NepalIlliteracy/Lack of EducationUnemploymentLack of IrrigationLack of Road and BridgeLack of AwarenessFloods/Change in Course of RiversLack of Arable LandLack of Drinking Water

Poverty/Lack of IncomeLow ProductivityAlcoholic HabitTopography/RemotenessLack of SkillCrop Loss from Wild AnimalsExcess rainfall/ DroughtHigh Price of FoodgrainOver PopulationFar MarketLack of Cleanliness/ToiletHuman/Animal Diseases

56.547.817.434.830.413.021.78.7

30.44.3

21.78.70.00.04.3

17.44.38.78.70.0

71.442.957.114.323.84.8

19.028.633.319.00.09.54.84.89.50.04.84.84.84.8

38.133.328.628.623.861.923.819.033.314.30.00.0

14.314.34.80.04.80.00.09.5

55.441.533.826.226.226.221.518.532.312.37.76.26.26.26.26.24.64.64.64.6

No of Communities 23 21 21 65


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Of particular note is that alarger proportion of the hillcommunities refers to lack ofdrinking water problem thando mountain communities.This corroborates our earlierfinding given in Chapter Six.On the other hand, lack ofroad has been the problem of

Although the constraints reported, andsolutions proposed by communities focuson all the four dimensions of food security,their major focus is on the access and thenthe availability dimensions of the foodsecurity. In particular, most of theproblems and solutions are related to theaccess, and some other especially in themountain relate to the availability, andsome other to disaster (vulnerability) andutilization dimensions of food security.

The constraints presented in Table 8.1 are of different types relating to lack of both“software” and “hardware”. Some of them are also related to risks and hazards. The problemsrelating to software include illiteracy or lack of education and skills, lack of awareness, andlack of cleanliness. Those relating to hardware are lack of irrigation, lack of road and bridge,lack of drinking water, and lack of market facility. Problems relating to risks and hazards arefloods and change in courses of rivers, crop damage from wild animals, excess rainfall anddrought, high foodgrain prices, and human or animal diseases. These problems boil down tolow productivity, unemployment, poverty, food insecurity which are the other problems aspointed by the community people.

The first two important constraints that undermine development are: a) illiteracy or lack ofeducation, and b) unemployment. More than 55 percent of the surveyed communities ofNepal pointed to illiteracy or lack of education and about 42 percent unemployment as theproblems for their development (Table 8.1). The following two constraints are related to lackof infrastructure, irrigation, and road and bridge. Poverty was also identified as a problem,which could be due to low productivity or lack of income because of lack of income earningopportunities among others. The problems identified have significant implications in relationto food insecurity, and cover all the four dimensions of food security, viz, availability, access,utilisation, and vulnerability.

The problems vary significantly across the threeregions of the country. Larger proportion of themountain and hill communities refers to illiteracy orlack of education as the problem. Similarly, a majorityof the hill communities pointed lack of irrigation as theproblem. Significant variation occurs also in terms ofthe problems relating to risks and hazards. Thus, alarger proportion of the Terai communities refers tofloods and river cutting or change in courses of riversas the problem as compared to those of hills andmountain, which also appears to be one of the criterionfor distinguishing food secure and foodinsecure households from communitiessuffering from such disasters. On theother hand, high price of food grains hasbeen conceived as a problem inmountain rather than hill and Terai.

Associated with the above problems, thesolutions as advanced by thecommunities are mentioned in Table 8.2.About 45 percent communities advancedprovision of education, and more thanone-thirds communities advancedprovision of irrigation facility as theirsolutions to problems. Many communities put emphasis on the creation of employmentopportunities across the three regions. Following this are some other solutions such as skilltraining, implementation of income generating activities, running cottage industries andestablishing large industries in rural parts of the country for creation of employmentopportunities. Provision of market facility was identified in hill and mountain, and that ofhealth facilities only in mountain. On the other hand, protection of forest was advanced as asolution only in the hills.


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Table 8.2Solutions to the Problems of the Communities by Ecological Regions and Country, Nepal, 2000

Percent of CommunitiesSolution to Problems/Constraints

Mountain Hill Terai NepalProvision of EducationProvision of IrrigationProvision of EmploymentConstruction of RoadsVocational/Skill Development TrainingImprovement in Animal HusbandryProvision of Drinking Water FacilityAgriculture- related Training/DevelopmentImplementing Income Generating ActivitiesAwareness and Sanitation ProgrammeElectrificationControl of Flood and River CuttingCottage IndustriesTransportation FacilitiesEstablishment of IndustryFood/Cloth/Medicine AidDistribution of Fruit SaplingsMarket FacilitiesShifting Community to a Safer PlaceDevelopment and Protection of ForestsProvision of Health Facilities

56.521.734.826.117.417.421.726.126.113.017.44.38.78.78.7

13.00.0

13.00.00.0

13.0

42.942.928.633.323.828.633.319.019.019.014.39.59.5

14.30.00.0

14.34.84.8

14.30.0

33.338.123.823.833.323.89.5

19.014.328.64.8

19.09.50.0

14.34.84.80.09.50.00.0

44.633.829.227.724.623.121.521.520.020.012.310.89.27.77.76.26.26.24.64.64.6

Number of Communities 23 21 21 65Note: There is not one-to-one correspondence between problems and solutions presented inTables 8.1 and 8.2, because: (i) problems and solutions were asked separately puttingdifferent questions, and (ii) as the communities were more vulnerable, interviewers were notdirected to probing by giving answers because that could create a lead bias. Nonetheless,solutions of a problem could be different.

The surveyed communities expressed their will to co-operate with any development activitiesconducted in their communities by an organisation. Most of them expressed willingness tocontribute unskilled labour and some reported making available local materials. Only a few ofthe communities pointed that they will contribute some financial resources. The details aregiven in Table 8.3.

Table 8.3Community Contribution for the Development by Ecological Regions and Country, Nepal, 2000

Percent of CommunitiesContribution

Mountain Hill Terai NepalUnskilled LabourLocal MaterialsFinancial ContributionFriendly Behaviour with Development WorkersOther Supports

95.730.44.34.38.6

95.214.39.54.80.0

81.014.30.00.04.8

90.820.04.63.14.6

Number of Vulnerable Communities 23 21 21 65

Three development projects are under operation by WFP/Nepal: Rural CommunityInfrastructure Works (RCIW) project, School Feeding Project (SFP), and Maternal and ChildHealth Care Project (MCHC). The constraints and opportunities outlined in this sectionprovide strong rationale for these projects, and also provide some insights for their furtherimprovement. The information presented in this section could help in the selection andimprovement of interventions by WFP/Nepal, and those presented in the preceding chapters,especially in Chapter Four could help in the design of the intervention and improved targetingdown to the community and household levels.


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In order to discuss the findings and their implications, the problems and constraints given inthis section are grouped into four headings relating to four dimensions of food security, viz.availability, access, utilisation and vulnerability, and are discussed in relation to the findingsof the preceding chapters, keeping in view the WFP policies.

8.3 DISCUSSION ON THE COMMUNITY LEVEL PRIORITIES

Lack of Education and Awareness

Overall, more than 55 percent of the surveyed communities pointed to illiteracy or lack ofeducation as constraint that undermines their livelihood, and therefore most of them ask forprovision of education for the solution to this problem (Tables 8.1 and 8.2). Associated withthis problem, three other constraints advanced by communities are: lack of awareness andlack of cleanliness/toilet, and lack of skills. From WFP’s food security perspective, theseconstraints are related to utilisation and access dimensions.

While the utilisation dimension is itself very much broad, education as a constraint extendsbeyond this and has effect on the access dimension of food security. There are field instancesshowing that generally illiterate people do not go for foreign employment and stayunemployed in the country due to their illiteracy or lack of skills, which gives rise to theirlack of access to food. On the whole, education plays an important role for the humanresource development which ultimately enhances productivity and enlarges options of thepeople. Moreover, lack of education and awareness result into improper use of food such asmaking liquor from foodgrains, excess use of liquor and lack of personal hygiene andsanitation, lack of personal care even during leisure time, and inter-personal differences infood intake. While there is some reference to these aspects in relation to the characteristics offood insecure households in Chapter Four and food security and gender in Chapter Eight,these aspects do not receive adequate attention by the communities while distinguishingbetween food secure and food insecure households. Among others, this signifies that poor andfood insecure households are not much aware of about the better utilisation of food availableat household levels. This provides a clear implication that WFP Nepal should extend MCHCand SFP with increased emphasis on the creation of awareness.

Although lack of education appears to be a main constraint from the community perspective,the same community people generally do not advance education as the criteria fordistinguishing food secure households from food insecure households (see Table 4.1).12 Thiscould be due to the use of illiteracy as a criteria while identifying vulnerable settlements bydistrict level stakeholders. Although education does not directly appear as the criteria fordistinguishing food secure and food insecure households, the household level quantitativedata supports the fact that education plays a role in the determination of the food security. Thedifference between proportion of literate household heads among the food secure and the foodinsecure groups of households and the resulting significant regression coefficient of theindependent variable “education of household head”, clearly establish the fact that educationhas some role in defining food security (see chapter four and Annex 4 Table 1).

Some of the household level food security criteria given in Table 4.1 capture basically theaccess dimension of food security, such as working as semi-skilled labour or wage labour,

12 In fact, out of 65, two communities advancededucational qualification as the criterion fordistinguishing between food secure and food insecurehouseholds in their communities.


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lack of access to service or pension income, or lack of foreign remittances. Access to serviceor pension or remittances also depends on educational status these days, although it was notof prime determinant in Nepal in the past. Moreover, skilled labour generally requireseducation, and therefore those who are not literate generally work as unskilled wage laboureither on farms or as porters, and some others work in the construction and repair of housesespecially in rural areas in the form of semi-skilled labour.

Annex 4 Table 1 also shows that there is a difference between the proportion of childrenattending school among the food secure and food insecure households although there is freeprimary schooling. This hints that there are other factors at work which create such a gap.Among them one main factor is economic poverty of the food insecure households. Thissuggests for improving the economic situation of the food insecure households so that they donot hold children, especially their girl children from going to school.

There are also gender differences in the education of children. The proportion of girlsattending school is less than that of boys in most of the communities, both in the food secureand food insecure households. The reasons why parents do not send their girl children toschool are well established in Nepal through various field-based investigations, such as theNepal Multiple Indicator Surveillance (NMIS) cycle 2. Among them the most importantreason is that girls are others’ property and are not helpful for their old age and thereforeparents do not want investing in their education. Moreover, poverty also seems to be one ofthe main hurdles for the gender gap in education. These findings are also supported by thefindings that have come out in the women focus group discussions of the present study.

The above explanation clearly hints that there is a need for improving the educational statusof children and closing the gender gap in education, and creating awareness for the improvedutilisation of food. Because of poverty, parents prefer their girl children to stay at home tolook after younger siblings so that they can work outside and earn. In order to enhance girls’education, WFP/Nepal has already launched Girls Incentive Programme (GIP), under whichparents are given an incentive of three litres cooking oil if their girls’ attendance rate inprimary level of schooling is 80 percent and above, and this programme will be furtherextended with the launch of the new WFP Country Programme (2002-06). An earlyevaluation of this programme by New ERA (2001) found its positive effect on the regularattendance of girl children. However, a careful scrutiny of the effectiveness of GIP, andimproved targeting of schools by providing such facilities to the schools of the very foodinsecure and vulnerable areas is necessary in order to increase the coverage of GIP. In orderto address the problem of lack of awareness, some training programmes have been conductedsuch as training on gender, nutrition and health issues given to the members of the FoodManagement Committees (FMCs) formed under SFP, and training on maternal and childhealth and nutrition to health staff, FCHVs (Female Community Health Volunteers) andcommunities under MCHC. These training should be further expanded with correction andmodification based on their effective evaluation.

In view of this, SFP and MCHC interventions of WFP/Nepal are warranted. But there is aneed for improved targeting, as all the public schools of a district are selected for theintervention under the project currently. However, it seems that there is some self-targetingmechanism involved in the SFP in the sense that those who are better off send their childrenin private schools in districts where there are such facilities. And the districts where thisfacility is not available are the very poor and remote districts where majority of thehouseholds are still poor and food insecure. Moreover, it is effective as it is targeted to highrisk individuals such as children of especially primary schools. The provision of wet feedingrather than take home ration, and the provision of on-site feeding to the school children whohardly carry lunch with them further justifies the SFP. Such a self-targeting mechanism also


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found in MCHC where pregnant and nursing mothers and their children will be providedblended and fortified foods.

Provision of literacy classes is demanded by the communities during the field visit by theSFP/WFP staff. However, there are concerns raised against the effectiveness of the literacyclasses which has been run by the GOs ad I/NGOs all over the country since the long past. Asurvey undertaken by Manushi, an NGO, in the pilot VDCs of WFP programme districts,Surkhet, Dailekh, Doti and Dadeldhura, found that many non-formal and adult literacy classeshave been implemented by GOs and I/NGOs. There are instances that the same person attendsmore than one times literacy classes once s/he forgets literacy skills received earlier. Thissuggests for running functional literacy or awareness programmes rather than merely literacy,and monitoring and supervising the use of the knowledge and awareness raised from theprogrammes.

One of the lessons learnt in the past by other agencies is that merely creation of awarenessdoes not effectively result into translating that awareness into practice unless the agencieshelp enabling the environment for the enhanced practice. This at times requires for theprovision of some hardware such as construction of drinking water facilities, sanitary unitssuch as latrine, washing platforms. This could be possible to some extent through theenhanced co-ordination and linkages between the three projects of the WFP. For example,under MCHC and SFP awareness could be created regarding improved health, hygiene andsanitation, and this then could be followed with the provision of sanitary units, drinking waterfacilities, and other equipment’s or materials in the schools and health posts under the RCIW.Such an inter-linkage could also give incentives to the personnel of organisations forundertaking awareness activities.

Implications for WFP/Nepal

• In view of the fact that food-aided projects should enable poor people to access thebenefits of development, which is the special niche of the WFP’s policy for developmentprogrammes, and that WFP development activities use food consumption to encourageinvestment and leave behind a lasting asset - human capital, the SFP is justifiable.

• Girls’ Incentive Programme be expanded and should cover more districts which ispossible through improved targeting down to VDC level, by focusing on the areas ofmore vulnerable and food insecure households.

• Awareness on health and nutrition, hygiene and sanitation, and gender be provided underMCHC and SFP. This could be run for the user groups formed under RCIW or for theFood Management Committee (FMC) or groups formed under SFP or for the expectantand nursing mothers visiting health posts. Alternatively, WFP could establish partnershipwith other organisations such as UNICEF, and INGO and NGOs for providing functionalliteracy and creating awareness through health, hygiene and sanitation campaigns, andmonitoring the awareness to put into practice.

• In order to make the awareness programme effective, there is need for inter-linking thethree projects of WFP, in that MCHC and SFP could create awareness and RCIW couldcreate some infrastructures in the schools and health posts.

• As RCIW/WFP has already launched REFLECT programme under its RCIW project, it issuggested that this programme be expanded in other areas as well.

Lack of Infrastructures

Lack of road/bridge, irrigation, market and drinking water facilities have been identified asconstraints by the communities (Table 8.1) Associated with these constraints are some other


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constraints such as topography/remoteness and high prices of food grains as pointed by few ofthe communities, especially those of mountain and remote hills. While lack of infrastructuressuch as transport has effect on the other dimensions as well, its major implication is with foodavailability in remote hill and mountain communities.

Associated with the lack of infrastructure as the community level priorities, the onlyhousehold criterion that speaks of this is the poor land quality or location that has beenidentified as the criterion by the communities while distinguishing food secure householdsfrom food insecure households (see Table 4.1). The poor land quality or location implies lackof irrigation facility or upland or degraded land in the hills or unfertile and degraded land inthe Terai. As all the households of a community may not benefit directly and equally fromirrigation facility available in a community or different households have different proportionof lowland vs upland, location or quality of land serve as household level criterion.

The reason behind infrastructures such as road , bridges and market facilities not appearing ascriteria for the distinction between the food secure and food insecure households is that theyare community level asset, whereas the criteria which need to distinguish whether a particularhousehold is food secure or food insecure are household level criteria. Thus, they couldappear as the important criteria for regional or settlement level distinction of food securitystatus which ahs been already considered by the district level stakeholders while identifyingfood insecure and vulnerable settlements for the rapid assessment..

There are concerns and opinion that provision of infrastructures is more beneficial to thebetter off households as compared to the poor households. For example, all weather roadsbenefit more to those who have land and therefore can get better price of their produce.Similarly, if food insecure households are landless households or households with limitedland holding, provision of irrigation will give disproportionate benefit to the poor ascompared to the better off households. Such concerns were also raised in the annual reports ofRCIW. However, this requires improved targeting at different levels. But as infrastructure is apublic good which lack the feature of excludability, it is difficult to target down to thehousehold level. Therefore, selection of the most vulnerable settlements is needed forimproved targeting so as to minimise the leakage, i.e. the difference between the targetpopulation and the beneficiary population.

However, there are also concerns which appear in favour of giving more emphasis in theprovision of infrastructures as they determine the level of vulnerability of a community. Lackof infrastructures draw down resources and limit the coping capacity in face of the exposureof covariant types of hazards in a community, and such a lack has higher effect on the poorhouseholds than the better off households, especially during a disaster.

Significant variations exist across communities regarding access to infrastructure andservices. Communities in the mountain region significantly lag behind the other regions,especially in access to road and market infrastructures and services. There are somecommunities in the mountain, especially in the Karnali Transhimalayan region, whichrequires 15 to 20 days walk to reach at the nearest all weather road. The poor infrastructuresmake them further vulnerable to food insecurity. In view of this, there is need for constructingroads and bridges, with special emphasis in the mountain. This justifies the current shift ofRCIW project to mountains, including the Karnali region and remote hill districts. By doingso there will not be much need for the improved targeting at the community level. Similarly,improved provision of irrigation facility will help increase food availability in the regionwhere availability is of greater concern as compared to access and utilisation dimensions offood security, as the food availability is necessary condition whereas the access and utilisationare the sufficient conditions of food security in the mountain.


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Lack of irrigation facility has eroded the capacity of food insecure households to mitigate theeffects of natural disasters such as drought, hailstorm and storm. Thus, there is a clearimplication of the provision of irrigation facility. However, it has also been found that themost food insecure households (falling in group D) are landless and therefore irrigationfacility could not be of much help to them. Therefore, this infers an improved targeting for theWFP intervention. Moreover, creation of employment opportunities seems to be the maindevelopment potential for these landless households through the provision of skills,vocational training, and then providing credit facilities for running cottage industries.Nonetheless, provision of irrigation facility can also increase employment opportunitythrough an increase in cropping intensity and the commercialisation of agriculture. Over andabove, it will help increase local food availability which is of primary concern in themountain settlements which are isolated and have their independent economies.

These findings are also corroborated by the Planning Mission’s study conducted in three hilland mountain districts. The study found that agricultural production and productivity both inphysical and value terms is below potential because of the lack of irrigation facility,inadequate availability of fertiliser, lack of commercial production of fruits and vegetablesdue to poor knowledge and skills, and lack of transportation and communication facilities. Italso found that too much labour is spent on collecting domestic water and firewood,preventing especially women from engaging in more productive activities. Besides, floodsand landslides were found to be the major problems in Makwanpur district (Konold et al.:2000). Therefore, it suggests for the provision of infrastructures, including drinking waterfacility which will also ease the burden of women who are mainly responsible for fetchingdrinking water.

As provision of infrastructures cost a lot of resources, it may not justify the cost-effectivenesswhich is one of the WFP’s FAAD policies, unless such infrastructure benefit a larger numberof food insecure households, especially in mountains where there is sparse population.However, the cost effectiveness is not only the FAAD policy. The policy that WFPconcentrate resources on food insecure areas within recipient countries, and that the purposeof WFP development activities is to encourage investment and leave behind a physical assetafter the project is phased out, opens the room for justification for constructing infrastructureswith the support of the communities in remote hill and mountain districts of Nepal. Moreover,if the social and indirect benefits of the provision of infrastructures in remote areas are takeninto account the cost-benefit calculi will certainly justify construction of infrastructures inremote areas that are devoid of such facilities. This issue will be further discussed in thevulnerability section of the chapter.

Implications for WFP Nepal

• There is a need for improved geographical targeting at district and intra-district levels forthe implementation of RCIW project of WFP.

• In order to fulfil the cost-effectiveness criterion of infrastructures, such infrastructuresshould be built in or pass through dense settlements, benefiting a larger number ofhouseholds, and will be of small scale so that they have a longer life due to their betteroperation and maintenance.

• Provision of infrastructure should be coupled with other types of interventions which helpin the effective and multiple uses of such infrastructures. These other interventions couldbe investment in animal husbandry, horticulture, herbs processing and promotion of eco-tourism in remote districts. This requires seeking other partners in order to make effectiveuse of the created infrastructures and provide sustainable livelihoods to the poorer sectionof the society.


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• The formation of groups and building their capacity taken under the RCIW should beemphasised in order to sustain the created infrastructures on the one hand and improvingfood security on the other.

• In view of the disproportionate benefit that could accrue due to the construction ofinfrastructures, and in order to sustain the livelihoods of the poor households after theconstruction of infrastructures, further emphasis should be given on the support for themicro projects undertaken by the groups of the landless and food insecure households.

Unemployment and Economic Poverty

Overall, 42 percent of the surveyed communities pointed unemployment and 32percent pointed poverty or lack of income as their problems and constraints.Associated with the economic poverty, some other constraints as outlined by thecommunities are lack of arable land, low productivity, and overpopulation. Theseproblems reflect on the access dimension of the food security. While the availabilitydimension of food security is more important in remote hill and mountain districts, theaccess dimension is important in all the three regions of the country in view of the factthat the poor and food insecure are everywhere, and that 42 percent people are stillbelow the poverty line in the country. Sen (1999) mentioned that food insecurity andfamines do not occur due to lack of availability but due to lack of access or due tolack of entitlement failure which is valid in the areas where food availability is not aproblem.

Mass exodus of Nepalese people to India and Arabian countries shows gravity ofunemployment problem in the country. Moreover, constant agricultural productivity, andrapid increase in population had resulted into impoverisation of the rural population especiallyin those areas where people lack options and opportunities for earning their livelihoods. Eachyear more than two hundred thousand labour force enter into the Nepalese labour market, butemployment opportunities do not increase in the same proportion, leading to growingunemployment problem.

There are lack of options open to the people. Moreover, the financial austerity measures,structural adjustment measures, liberalisation and privatisation policies adopted in the recentpast by the government has disproportionately affected the poorer sections of the society dueto rising prices and increase in the cost of production. This again points towards targetedinterventions for the poors so long as the effect of such measures are not normalised, yieldinga positive return.

While seasonal migration has alleviated the problem of unemployment to the extent possible,there are some pros and cons of the migration. The major consequences is drain of youngmale population outside the country and therefore increasing feminisation of agriculture.Although quantitative data does not find much difference between the proportion of familiesof food secure and insecure groups whose members are working outside their communities,the effect of unemployment problem is severe for the poorest of the poor as they are generallyilliterate and therefore hardly go to India for working as wage labour, whereas those who areliterate and somewhat better off go to third countries for higher wage rate. This, together withlow wage rate in the agriculture sector, and higher number of dependants in the food insecurefamilies (see annex 4, Table 1) further make them keep in debt and poverty traps.

Compared to hill and mountain a larger proportion of the population in the Terai is landless.Thus, human labour becomes the main source of income for the landless households and thisis more important in the Terai. Had there not been easy access to India or easy availability of


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employment in the agriculture in the Terai, it would have been further difficult for them tosave their lives. The problem in the hill and mountain is the lack of arable and productiveland, and therefore agricultural production and productivity is low there. This together withthe lack of manure and litter has also aggravated the problem of constant productivity in theagriculture sector there.The food security ranking exercise performed at community level came out with 63 percent ofthe households in aggregate as food insecure households in the 65 vulnerable communities,and this ranges from 25 percent to more than 90 percent. Majority of the households in mostof the communities are food insecure. This exercise basically focuses on the accessdimension, as the main purpose of the exercise was to distinguish household level foodsecurity.

Relating to access dimension, different criteria were used by the communities to distinguishbetween food secure and food insecure households. They include: i) lack of able-bodiedlabour, ii) small land or animal holding, iii) reliance on tenancy arrangements, iv) poor qualityof land, v) lack of access to service/pension income or foreign remittances, and vi) working aswage labour, semi-skilled or unskilled labour (see Table 4.1). These indicators show that assetpoverty is the main reason why households are food insecure. As the households are landlessor have small land holding and/or poor fertility land holding, and have no animals or smallanimal holding, they are not fully employed from the assets that they have, and therefore theyneed employment opportunities outside their homes. The most important employmentopportunity available in the rural parts of the country is to work as casual wage labour, mainlyas agriculture wage labour or as porters in mountain. This employment opportunity isgenerally seasonal and therefore food insecure people lack employment opportunitiesthroughout the year. As a result, there is mass exodus of population for seeking employmenteither in urban areas of the country or foreign countries, especially in India. This is the reasonwhy they have pointed unemployment as their major constraint.

One important criterion of food insecure households is lack of able-bodied members whichimplies a larger number of dependants in the households in relation to their labour resources.This suggests for an enhanced implementation of family planning programme covering alager proportion of families in the remote and rural parts of the country. This requires creatingawareness among the people, and provision of services at the community level, among others.

In order to alleviate poverty and food insecurity, provision of employment is necessary.Under RCIW project, WFP has been providing employment opportunities. It is said thatRCIW is self-targeting as it pays in-kind wage which is again coarse rice, and thereforepoorer section of the society are benefited from the project by working as wage labour in theconstruction of infrastructures, especially roads. However, there is lack of employment in therural parts of the country during agriculture off season when there is no alternativeemployment opportunities, and therefore the opportunity cost of labour is near zero in ruralNepal during this period. The construction of roads under the RCIW is undertaken generallyduring the agriculture off season and therefore it is very likely that those who are not mostfood insecure could also work under the RCIW.

However, RCIW project has both the short term consumption effect, and long term effects interms of leaving behind physical assets. If these physical assets are made long lasting andmore useful for the poor, it will certainly help in alleviating poverty and food insecurity in thecountry. In view of this, it is necessary that there should be some built-in mechanism whichmaintain sustainability for project benefit and services. Thus, group formation andundertaking micro-initiatives under RCIW is justifiable which not only help in sustainingthrough repair and maintenance of the created infrastructure but also making households foodsecure.


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• As unemployment is a great problem in rural areas of the country, RCIW is justifiableprovided that most of the households who work under the project are the food insecurehouseholds. In view of this, there is a need for improved geographic targeting.

• In order to make sustainable livelihoods for the poor people after the project is phasedout, formation of groups and undertaking micro-initiatives under RCIW should be furtherexpanded with improved provision of financial as well as technical supports. The supportshould be in the form capacity building.

• The formed groups should be linked with other organisations such as the communityforestry committee, VDC and other CBOs and NGOs of the community, so that they canbenefit from partnering with other organisations. One option is to involve these usergroups to income generating activities under the community forestry programme of thegovernment.

• The main reason reported for a household being food insecure is lack of able-bodiedmembers or larger number of dependants in relation to its labour resources, and thereforethis calls for creating awareness and enhanced implementation of family planningprogramme in the rural, food insecure areas of the country.

• As poverty and food insecurity has multiple dimensions, it requires implementation ofdifferent interventions simultaneously which could be possible through parternering withother organisations.

Vulnerability

While food security is a static concept, vulnerability is a dynamic concept which worksthrough the other three dimensions of food security with time. Various risks and hazards werenoted under the rapid assessment of 65 communities. These range from natural hazards todiseases relating to human, animal and plants, to policy or other manmade risks. Importantnatural hazards pointed by community people are hailstorm, flood, excessive rainfall, drought,earthquake, storm, change in the courses of rivers, and snowfall. Hailstorm, flood, andexcessive rainfall were reported in all the three ecological regions; earthquake generally inmountain and hills; storm generally in hills and Terai; change in the course of river in Terai;landslides in hills and mountain; and snowfall in the mountain regions of the country. Amongthe human diseases, diarrhoea, dysentery, cholera, measles and fever were commonlyreported. Similarly, a number of animal and plant diseases were also noted across all thesurvey communities. Some policy risks such as increase in the price of food grains, lack offree access to forest resources due to implementation of community forestry programme werealso reported. At a dis-aggregated level, risks such as loss of crops from wild animals andshort pause of airport and lack of employment opportunities were also pointed out by somecommunities which shows how fragile these communities are that even a small event couldhave a greater shock in their livelihoods, and smash their fragile economy. Although socialunrest is growing with time, these have not been reported during the field work.

A significant amount of crop loss was reported by the community people ranging from aquarter to 95 percent of the loss from natural hazards. The severe impact was of flood anddrought due to their intensity and as well as large area coverage. Compared to these, the effectof hailstorm is less severe in that it is more localised, but as it is more frequent its effect alsobecomes higher during a crop calendar. When drought is extended for a longer period of time


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starting from March to July then it has significant impact as it affects both the winter andsummer crops. Similalrly, the impact was found higher when natural disasters were followedwith some diseases relating to animal or plants.

The amount of loss from a disaster differs by regions. For example, hailstorm has a greaterimpact in hills and mountains as compared to Terai as it is less frequent in Terai, but flood hasa greater impact in Terai due to plain land and therefore higher possibility of change in thecourse of rivers and water logging prohibiting crop cultivation. Animal diseases has a largereffect in mountain, as animal husbandry is widely practised there but there is lack ofaccessibility of the livestock services as compared to the Terai. Thus, exposure to risks differby types of disasters and by region and within region by socio-economic groups.

There are also indirect effects of disasters on the other sections of the society and such effectsare higher when there is lack of infrastructure such as road, marketing facilities, and otherservices. Examples abound that show that people in remote districts have to devote aconsiderable amount of time to buy foodgrains due to lack of road or when trails are washedaway due to landslides. As compared to past days, the physical accessibility of food grain hasbeen improved these days due to opening up of new roads and market centres. However, thereare still some very remote communities today which have to spend a significant amount oftime to buy foodgrains. This means that coping capacity also depend on the level andcondition of infrastructure. Broadly, it depends on: ii) level of income and consumption, ii)level of assets, iii) ability to diversify sources of income and consumption, iv) access toresources, services and infrastructure, and v) access to public and community supportservices. A detail exposition on the exposure to risk and coping capacity appeared in chaptersfive and six.

The problem of soil erosion, and lack of forest-based litters for manuring field, and theconsequent low agricultural production and low level of income, the inability of the foodinsecure groups to feed their family members throughout normal year from their incomesources, the distress sale of livestock and other assets, and the larger proportion of resourcesused for food consumption limit the possibility of accumulating assets by the poorhouseholds.

The most common option for accumulating assets is through raising animals, but it has beenfound in Chapter Four that compared to food secure households a smaller proportion of foodinsecure households have livestock, and again these households have generally smallerlivestock. As raising bigger livestock requires a high initial investment for the poor people,they adopt share cropping; but decrease of forest resources and lack of free access to forestresources for fodder with the implementation of the community forestry programme haslimited the capacity of the poor for mitigating risks through the self insurance such as fromraising animals.

For those poor households who have some land are bound to invest in draft power forcultivation. These households suffer from hazards, mainly due to vagaries of monsoon andtherefore could not get a proper return of their investment in some years, and in some otheryears their draft power are died of due to animal epidemic, leaving them again in debt trapand destitution. The government’s livestock service centres could be more effective to controlanimal epidemic if they are linked with roads. Thus, disasters hardly allow for people who arejust below the poverty line to come above the poverty line. Thus, in the lack of animal andcrop insurance and in the face of frequent disasters and lack of alternative income earningoptions, it is very likely that larger and larger proportion of the households of the mostvulnerable areas would become food insecure in the days that are to come.


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Under the rapid assessment of the 65 vulnerable communities, a significant change in therange of sources of income of the vulnerable communities has not been noticed betweennormal and abnormal years. In fact, the coping behaviours are typically the extensions andintensification of economic activities undertaken during normal years. For example, in themountains slightly more households engage in portering and other wage labour, the sale ofanimals for income, migration outside the community, the sale of firewood, food and herbscollected in the forests, and borrowing. In the hill communities, the only changes betweennormal and abnormal years appears to be a slight increase in households migrating outside thecommunity to look for work and small trading activities and borrowing. For households inTerai, migration seems to be the primary income coping responses among households, inaddition to greater recourse to local wage labour, the sale of firewood, and herbs collected inthe forests, and borrowing. Of course, of all the coping responses, there is significant changein the proportion of households who are borrowing during the abnormal years, and there isnot much addition of the other new coping responses. This suggests there is limited copingoptions available to the community on the one hand, and that most of the people of thevulnerable communities are chronically food insecure. Moreover, living on borrowing meansimpoverishing their future generation, and therefore pushing a larger and larger chunk of thepopulation in the trap of the chronic food insecurity in the future. Thus, the one main concernis how to make these people out of the chronic food insecurity.

Thus, there are limited coping measures adopted by the poor and food insecure people. Theserange from working as labourer in the country or going to India, to collection and sale offorest-based products, to sale of household properties, and ultimately to sale of fixedproperties and migration. As there is lack of diversification of income sources, and lack ofinsurance mechanism due to lack of saving, animals serve as the main cushion to cope withdisasters, apart from the forest-based resources and basic assets of human labour of the poorand food insecure households. The informal insurance mechanisms are on the decreasingtrend because of the modernisation.

Apart from informal coping measures, some formal coping measures are under operation inNepal. These include assistance extended by the Ministry of Home through the Chief DistrictOffice or through the DDC and VDC offices. Besides, some supports from WFP, Nepal RedCross Society, Leo and Lions Clubs are also reported whenever there are major shocks likeearthquake, floods and fire. It seems that there is lack of resources with the government andtherefore, there are some formal supports after the shocks. There is lack of emphasis by thegovernment on the risk reduction and mitigation measures in the vulnerable areas.

Different forms of user groups were found existing in the survey communities, such as thosebelonging to community forestry, drinking water and other infrastructures. Such formedgroups are not sustainable; once the programme is phased out they disappear or becomeinactive. In view of this, there is a need for forming and sustaining groups and running someincome generating activities or the activities which will build the productive capacity of thecommunities. Under RCIW, WFP/Nepal forms groups and implements some microinitiatives which could help community to mitigate the effects of such shocks but there isneed for further enhanced implementation of these activities. This calls for partnering withother organisations such as GTZ at the moment for the effective implementation of suchinitiatives and for sustaining groups.

Relating to the vulnerability dimension of the food insecurity, the problems that wereidentified by the people are flood and change in the course of river, crop loss by wild animals,excess rainfall and drought, human and animal diseases (Table 8.1). The reason behind alower proportion of communities referring these as problems is because some of theseproblems are due to natural hazards and some of the problems such as loss of crops from wild


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animals are localised problems, mainly in the communities adjoining to the protected areas ofthe government. Hailstorm and other natural disasters were not reported as the problemswhich may be due to the fact that these problems are out of the control. This points that thereis need for improving the coping capacity of people either by controlling the exposure to risksor by improving the coping capacity of the people. However, none of the household levelcriteria mentioned for distinguishing food secure and food insecure households are directlyrelated with the vulnerability dimension of food security (see Table 4.1) which could be dueto the fact that risk are generally of covariant type and therefore is a community levelconcern. However there are some risks which are of idiosyncratic type but detailedinvestigation was not carried out for these types of events during the course of the fieldsassessment.

Human diseases were reported as risk in al the survey communities. Of them the mostcommon were diarrhoea, dysentery, ARI and measles, and diarrhoea was reported to claim thelives of many children. These diseases which are more frequent has further aggravated theproblem of malnutrition among the children, especially of the food insecure households. Lackof micro-nutrients has resulted in poor nutritional status of children as well as poor health ofwomen contributing to high child and maternal mortality in the country. The death of childrenand members of families results into borrowing by the families for the cremation and otherceremonies which incur huge cost in relation to their resources. This requires implementingawareness measures and measures which improve the health of children and pregnant womenand nursing mothers.

The MCHC project of WFP focuses on high risk individuals such as children aged 6 to 36months and pregnant and nursing mothers, and therefore this project is effective. In order tomake this project further effective, it has to put further emphasis on the software by creatingawareness and imparting knowledge to the communities about the health of the children andmothers.


• In order to improve the coping capacity and to improve the utilisation of livestock andhealth services, creation of infrastructure is to be continued in the RCIW of WFP, withgreater emphasis in remote hill and mountain districts, and among the mountain districts,the Karnali Transhimalaya should receive greater priority. However, such provision ofinfrastructures should also take into account their cost effectiveness.

• In order to effectively utilise the created infrastructure and government services availablein the communities, some support services, technical and financial, should be madeavailable in the communities. This can be done through the enhanced implementation ofgroup approach under the RCIW.

• In order to improve the coping capacity of people, income earning options should beenlarged through the provision of enhanced human resource development by conductingfood for training programmes related to skills.

• The preceding analysis also suggests for the intervention framework of the WFP. Whilethe existing framework is good, there seems to be some other additions such as provisionof community grain banks/reserves in remote hill and mountain districts and support tocommunity forestry programme and linking community forestry with the povertyalleviation programme of the government in order to push the food insecure householdsabove the poverty line which will also help household come out of the trap of the chronicfood insecurity.


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• The disaster mitigation measures such as control of floods and gully control and controlof water logging through construction of catchment ponds and forestry measures shouldbe further expanded under the RCIW intervention.

• In order to improve the coping capacity of the people formal and informal insurancemechanisms be expanded. Under formal mechanism, insurance against animal diseases isa viable option as animals are also raised by landless households, and among informalinsurance mechanism, the formation of users groups and supporting the informal groupsand community based organisations for micro-initiatives should be promoted.

• Since poor people cannot fully manage risks on their own, any food insecurity reductionstrategy needs to improve risk management for the poor through reducing and mitigatingrisks and coping with shocks. HMGN has some provisions for the coping with shockmeasures, but there is lack of consistent policy on the risk reduction and mitigationmeasures. Therefore, it is recommended that emphasis should be laid on the risk reductionand mitigation in the areas which are prone to risks and disasters. In view of the resourceconstraints, partnership between agencies is a viable option for risk reduction andmitigation.

• The risk reduction and mitigation measures should concentrate on reducing the effect offloods in Terai, and drought, hailstorm and landslides in the hills and mountains amongothers. Such measures should not have only narrow focus such as controlling the changein the course of rivers, but also developing and propagating crops that are drought orflood resistant or crops which can be planted in such a way that it make possible to avoidthe effect of frequent hailstorm. This should be accompanied by creation of alternativeemployment opportunities so that communities could mitigate the effects of disasters inlong run.

• As diarrhoea and dysentery were most common, but claiming the lives of people,especially children, it is suggested that awareness measures be launched under the MCHCprogramme focusing on the health and nutrition of children, pregnant and nursingmothers, This can be done partnering with other organisations, including UNICEF, andI/NGOs.

Intra-household Food Insecurity

Women, especially the ones who look after kitchen, are food insecure because they eat last,and generally eat the leftovers, and many of them have to limit their portion size during foodshortage period, extending generally from February/March to July/August, for feedingadequately their children. These women are generally from Indo-Aryan families. Pregnantand nursing/lactating mothers who are in the dire need of additional nutritious foods arefurther at higher risks as they are not given adequate food during their such critical stages oftheir life. Compared to pregnant women, nursing mothers are in better situation as they aregiven some special foods such as chicken curry, ghee and rice just after delivery for a periodof 3 to 11 days, depending on the economic condition of the families and the prevailingtradition. As to the children, school children generally eat two meals a day and eat less thanthat of the out of the school children of the same family.

The above findings provide a clear implication that WFP/Nepal should extend its Schoolfeeding and Maternal and child health projects with increased emphasis on the creation ofawareness.


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8.4 TARGETING CRITERIA FOR WFP INTERVENTIONS

That improved targeting is a prerequisite for all the WFP interventions has clearly appeared tobe an issue in the above discussions. In fact, it is difficult to separate concerns for improvedtargeting from those for improved overall programme design. The criteria used by districtlevel stakeholders for the identification of the vulnerable and food insecure settlements, theproblems and constraints outlined by the communities, and the criteria used by a communityin order to distinguish between food secure and food insecure households are some whatdifferent. In particular, while the criteria undertaken for the selection of the vulnerablesettlements and the development constraints revolve around the four dimension of foodinsecurity, whereas the household level criteria are mainly related with the access dimensionof the food insecurity. This is because the use of a criteria at a higher level rules out itsprevalence at a lower level, and also because the availability and vulnerability dimensions offood insecurity is a community level concern, whereas the access and utilisation arehousehold and intra-household level concerns.

The preceding explanation indicates that WFP intervention can be targeted through multiplechannels, multiple levels, and on the basis of multiple selection criteria. The differencebetween the indicators at different levels suggests that the geographic targeting undertaken atWFP Nepal can be combined with community, household or individual targeting mechanismsbased on related, but separate selection criteria at each level.

In essence, there could be two types of targeting, one is the geographic targeting and the otherone is the household level targeting. For the geographic level of targeting there could bedifferent tiers such as the regional level targeting down to the VDC or settlement/communitylevel targeting. For each level of targeting, the indicators identified for the regional level ordistrict level targeting could be honed up taking into account specific situation of a settlement.At a regional level or district level targeting, the following indicators could be used:

• Annual per capita cereal production• Per capita availability of basic infrastructures such as road density• Proportion of population consuming less than 2,250 kcal per person per day• Proportion of population below national poverty line• Proportion of underweight children under five years• Proportion of adult illiterate women• Proportion of anaemic pregnant women• Proportion of population affected by recurrent natural disasters.

The above criteria represent the four dimensions of food insecurity which can be used toidentify and rank food insecure areas. A geographical area which is poor in terms of alldimensions of food insecurity is the most vulnerable and therefore should be accordedtopmost priority as compared to the others.

After targeting at regional or district level, a targeting at VDC level or down to the settlementlevel could be done by sharing the criteria related to following features in a participatorydiscussion with district level stake holders.

• Environmental features• Social characteristics• Access to infrastructures


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• Access to services• Economic characteristics• Natural and manmade hazards• Health patterns

While the geographic targeting done at the district level defines the population at high risks,the prioritisation of VDC or settlements within the districts brings out with the targetpopulation. Once the areas are identified the following indicators with some modifications asper the specific feature of a settlement/community could be used for screening beneficiaryhouseholds within that settlement.

• Proportion of able-bodied labour• Size of land holding• Quality of land holding• Size of animal holding• Access to service or pension income• Access to foreign remittances• Working as wage labour or not• Working as unskilled or semi-skilled labour or not• Reliance on tenancy arrangement or not• Having trade as occupation or not.

Given the nature of the WFP activities such as creation of public assets, their coverage andtheir current implementation arrangement, it may be difficult to apply the targeting athousehold level by the administrative means, and therefore a recourse should be taken to self-targeting and community targeting mechanism using participatory approaches. If thegeographical targeting down to the community level is efficient or if the target population isproperly defined, and if measures are adopted to reduce leakage, i.e., the different between thetarget population and beneficiary population, then even the random distribution of benefits atsettlement level could result into higher coverage and higher social impact of the WFPintervention with improved targeting from the same amount of cost.

Pregnant women, nursing and lactating mothers, young children, old, sick and disabled aremore food insecure than the other members of households. As to who are the most foodinsecure in food insecure families are already known, there is no much need for any criteriafor their identification. What is more important is how to reach the food benefits to theseindividuals.

The current practice of onsite feeding or wet feeding under SFP Nepal is effective ascompared to the take home ration of three litres of oil under its Girls Incentive Scheme.However, if the purpose of the GIP is to increase the girls attendance, then it has certainlyreduced the opportunity cost of preventing girl children from going to school.

Under the MCHC the provision of take home ration for the pregnant and nursing mothers andtheir children considers the blended and fortified food so that such ration may not be used byother members of the family. Besides, as it is fortified it supplements micro-nutrientdeficiencies which is widely rampant in the country.

8.5 PROSPECTS AND NEW PROPOSALS FOR INTERVENTIONS

The Planning Mission study pointed out skill training as one of the higher priorities of thecommunities. The study infers that provision of drinking water and enhanced conservation of


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Among the mountaindistricts, some districts havespecific opportunities, suchas production of handmadepaper from Lokta,production of clothes fromAllo in the Sankhuwasabhaand Solukhumbu;production of blanket,medicines, fruits in Humlaand Jumla. Besides,production of vegetables is

forest resources can release some time for women which can be used in productive activitiesthrough providing skill to these women. Apart from skill training and vocational training,infrastructure development has been of the higher priority of the communities. Moreover,production of medicinal herbs was found to be the important development potential in thevulnerable areas of the hills and mountains (Konold et al.: 2000).The field observation by FSVP study teams foundmany opportunities for the development of thecommunity people. Some of these opportunities differacross the regions. There is prospect of thedevelopment of the mountain as there is no overpopulation as compared to the existing naturalresources there. However, whatever developmentopportunities are there in the mountain, all ask formarket and therefore creation of the infrastructure suchas transport and electricity. The opportunity ofhorticulture is also very high in the hills. As comparedto the mountain and hills, the opportunities in the Teraiare less. In view of the growing problems of floods andriver cutting in the Terai, embankment and other floodcontrol measures can significantly enhance foodgrainproduction in this part of the country. Because of the wide difference in the topography andclimate, the three regions of the country have comparative advantage in differentcommodities. The conventional thought is that mountain should specialise in animalhusbandry, hill in horticulture and Terai in grains. However, due to problem of land-lockedness, it is desirable to focus on the light but high value commodities.

It has been referred earlier that most the population of the surveyed communities arechronically food insecure, and some additional population are just above the food security linebecome vulnerable when there is some shock. The targeted interventions of WFP are mainlyrelated to public works and direct food transfers. These interventions will help protectvulnerable groups until they are in a position to benefit from the improved economicopportunities that macroeconomic reforms could present. This suggests that WFPinterventions should also be followed with macro-economic policy reforms so that thechronically food insecure and transitorily food insecure people become food secure. In orderto remove transitory food insecurity the government has to put emphasis on the risk reductionand risk mitigation measures, and coping with shocks should be taken as a residual measure.Thus, groups formed and supported under the WFP projects be supported and benefited by thegovernment policy reforms after the projects are phased out. Further emphasis should begiven on the human resource development and creating an environment for the use of skillsso that poor can earn their livelihoods.

PARTNERSHIPS

Poverty and food insecurity has many dimensions. Again, for each dimension, there areseveral factors at work, and therefore it becomes difficult exercise to make a food insecureperson all the time food secure. However, the efforts should be directed to make all the peoplefood secure for most of their life periods so that they can enjoy their human right of foodsecurity. To achieve this aim requires a major feat, a feat which is not possible within aconfine of a single agency, and therefore partnering between organisations is the necessity ofhour to achieve the common goal of eradicating food insecurity and poverty in the country.

Towards this end, the drafting of UNDAF is a commendable step in the right direction. Whatnow has become more important is to implement the UNDAF by the UN system, putting their


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heads together, pulling their limited resources, and working jointly with the government inorder to attack the multiple dimensions of food insecurity and poverty.

There is also a need for partnership with bilateral organisations such as GTZ, SNV,DANIDA, SDC, DIFID, and Asian Development Bank. These organisations have differentagenda and focus, but all these meant for development. Therefore, partnership with theseorganisations is not a remote possibility. Moreover, these organisations have been operatingin some of the districts where WFP has been operating which gives further leeway for thepartnership. The partnership with government is also equally important. WFP has beenworking in partnership with District Soil Conservation Offices of Siraha, Saptari andUdayapur, and this effort could be extended to other districts along the inner Terai and ChuriaHill and flood-prone eastern Terai districts. The partnership with Ministry of Health couldhelp MCHC/WFP achieve raising awareness of the most food insecure population, thepregnant women and children.

The partnership should extend to a lower level, down to the community level where theprogrammes of the INGOs and NGOs are implemented. In fact, WFP has been working withsome NGOs such as SAPPROS, Manushi and New ERA under its different projects. There isfurther possibility of involving these NGOs and some other local NGOs in empowering,creating awareness and building the capacity of groups and people at large. However, beforeselecting the partners, a thorough investigation of the needs and demands of the bilateralorganisation and I/NGOs should be carried out so that problems do no creep in the mid-wayof the implementation, hampering the success of programme.


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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION - World Food Programme

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