Book launch:  Housing and Urban Development in Nepal by Dr. Jibgar Joshi

A program was organized at Xavier’s Academy, Lazimpat, Kathmandu, on December 28, 2013 to launch the third revised edition of Housing and Urban Development in Nepal authored by Dr. Jibgar Joshi. Apart from the launching of the book, the program deliberated on topical issues on the problems and challenges of housing and urban development in Nepal. The program started after tea and some light snacks.  It had rather an informal setting, which turned out to be rather productive, despite being a short program of little more than an hour.  The chief guest of the program Dr. Mohan Man Sainju, Former VC of National Planning Commission (NPC), released the book at the outset.

Guest of honor, Dr. Guna Nidhi Sharma, Former VC of NPC, was then invited to speak about the book. He presented a vivid account of the gloomy economic situation of Nepal and underscored the need for streamlining the housing and urban sector as advocated in the book.
He stressed on the need for balanced development and maintained that the increase in investments in modern housing have made the Nepalese economy less resilient as most inputs are imported and its impact on employment generation is not significant. His speech mostly focused on the difficult political environment for the planning bureaucrats and thinkers. He related the sad plight of the housing conditions with the deteriorating economy of the nation. His main focus was directed to the chaotic form of urbanization. He warned that urbanization if not managed as advocatged in the book would create a serious problem. He made it clear that the serious works like the present one should warn us to be aware of the problems due to the capital-driven activities especially in the Kathmandu Valley. He cited the problems and challenges of unplanned urban growth driven mainly by the global capital and resented on the rapid loss of agricultural land. He dwelt with the loss of resilience of the Nepalese economy and related it with the inability to cope with the urbanization. He congratulated the author for his contribution and stressed on the need for such serious efforts to make a change in the policy domain in Nepal.

The Master of Ceremony, Dr. Pramod Shrestha then invited Dr. Sunil Babu Shrestha, Former Member of NPC, to comment on the paper requesting him to be more focused on the book and not get diverted to the gloomy picture of Nepal that Dr. Sharma portrayed. He first summarized the contents of the book. Through his chapter-by-chapter analysis, he did an excellent job of exposing the book to generate interest among the participants during the Q/A session that followed. He made it easier for those present in the room to "know" what the book contains (or lacks) before reading it. He pointed out the strengths of the approaches in the book and the need for a wider dissemination of the ideas through its Nepali version to make a greater impact. He found the book to be highly readable and of topical interest and based on the most recent data and congratulated the author for such an excellent knowledge product. In terms of suggestions to improve the book, his shopping list included more detailed coverage on green technology and the recently growing portfolio of the housing finance; international best practices, senior citizen housing, cooperative investment on housing, and the issue of farmland loss. A single book cannot and does not necessarily cover everything. Others are free to build upon the existing work. His too much expectation from the book's future (and still unplanned) editions may be a result of his respect towards the author. He made a comprehensive review of the book.

Dr. Sainju then opened the floor for the Q/A session. It turned out to be a lively discussion on urban planning issues, such as the problem of drainage, river pollution, loss of cultural heritage, high-rise apartments, to name a few, not directly related with the book. Prof. Sudarshan Tiwari questioned if modern urban planning at the cost of heritage loss is inevitable. Prof Narendra Khanal questioned the logic behind spatial delineation of rural and urban areas and highlighted on the need for planning-led management.

Dr. Sainju, wrapping the discussions stressed on the need for being more critical on the issues raised in the book and some more efforts from the engineers’ community to deal with the problems. He lamented that planned urbanization efforts were weakened with the passing away of Dr. Harka Gurung. He recalled that even the data on the regional allocation of resources are no more available. Dr. Sainju gave a much more balanced comment. He praised the book and its author whom he personally knows to be a leading urban and regional planner. His criticism was that the book was not very critical. He was of the opinion that if some planning policies or interventions have gone wrong or failed, the book should explain why and how.

Dr. Pramod Shrestha then asked the author to speak a few words. Dr. Joshi began his short speech by expressing his gratitude to the gathering and thanked the organizers. He introduced the book through the three editions (1991, 1999, and 2013) and evaluated the planning environment during the three periods. He opined that the 1991 edition was based on rigorous planning exercises done during the late 1980s with the support of NPC. At that time, there was limited conflict of interest making it easier to plan. The environment for planning and rigorous studies at that time was more appropriate. He recalled his Humphrey Fellowship Year at MIT, which helped him to be sufficiently planning-oriented. But the problem then was how to implement the good ideas and intentions embodied in the plan and policies. This made him add a sub-title “analysis and design of participatory development process” in the 1999 edition. The implementation became more and more difficult with many imported ideas and political transition. Thus there was a natural bias for management as reflected in the subtitle of the second edition. But now this was no more relevant as the government itself is using its efforts and resources to sustain the new capital mode of development, which despite many adverse implications failed to thrive in our case. This reduced the relevance of the question of planning-led management as raised by Prof. Khanal, he explained. The preservation of historical towns, culture and all good things of the past got less priority as rightly pointed out by Prof. Tiwari. Dr. Joshi said that he has no intention of being critical to the recent changes given that the country is still under political transition.  However, he fully agreed with Dr. Sainju that it is high time that engineering and planning community should raise a bigger voice for putting the policy and planning on the right track as there is no point in subsidizing the capital-led development.

On behalf of the organizers, Mr. Kishore Jha delivering a vote of thanks expressed his deep appreciation to the chief guest, guest of honor and commentator. He thanked the author recalling that he read the second edition of the book during his study of urban planning at the Institute of Engineering.

The program, attended by eminent planners, economists, and academia, provided a forum on the current problems of Nepal and highlighted the need for making a voice on the need for balanced development both in terms of sector as well as space  through the streamlining of the housing and urban development sector.  The Govt of Nepal is in the process of strengthening urban governance in each and every municipality under LGCDP II with UNDP support. Because of the inclusion of 'urban governance', the book is relevant not only for urban planners but also for governance experts. This book deserves a wider platform.

BOCM

Posted by Jibgar Joshi on Sunday, May 27, 2012

 

Climate Change and Infrastructure Development in Nepal

 

 

Jibgar Joshi, Ph.D.

email: jibgarj@gmail.com

 

 

Introduction

The purpose of this short presentation is to raise some of the issues that will make CDM and related mechanisms like BOCM more relevant to Nepal.  It will raise awareness on Climate Change (CC) issues. It will try to increase our understanding of the CC implications on infrastructure projects and their impact on CC. Understanding of the impacts of infrastructure on climate change will help to reduce anthropogenic CC. Understanding of the implications of climate change will help adapt to CC related disasters and consequences.  I will try to explain Nepal’s problems in the evolution of climate change related policies at the outset and suggest for integrating these with the overall development challenges that the country is facing. It will focus on mobilizing additional funds for implementing infrastructure projects from the climate change framework. For this, we need to identify infrastructure projects that will provide additionality and that contribute to sustainable development. Projects should deliver additionality in terms of the reduction in GHG emissions or climate change impacts and help foster sustainable development.  Enormous savings will be possible if we make a shift to green development through the implementation of sustainable transport, environmental services and sustainable energy projects. However, I will argue that Nepal should address these from the community or ecosystem perspective. Projects identified in terms of settlement development with sustainable infrastructure projects will help reduce GHG emission markedly. The contribution of such an approach to sustainable development could be immense.

 

Climate Change and Policy Context

Climate change and global warming due to GHG emission is a global concern. Nepal is no exception to it. Change in the Earth’s climate and its adverse effects are a common and growing concern. Climate change has a growing significance. It is a concrete issue, which is directly related with environment. Adverse weather conditions are not new. Their impacts on communities are historical. They affect the way of life in its totality. They shape cultural and social system.  Although Nepal’s contribution to the global pool of GHG emission is very low, she is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The problem is further aggravated due to widespread poverty, landslides, and dependence on rain-fed agriculture.

 

Nepal shows high potential for sustaining low GHG emissions due to poverty and primitive culture.  However, changes in some social and behavioral trends have increased total energy use. Although developed countries are more responsible for the climate change, we are also following their path of development. The outside forces emanated from the operation of the global economy generally lead to the imitation of the high standards. Such standards are based on technologies which even when they are environment-friendly may not match with our needs and culture.

 

The national policy has underscored the need to maintain balance in natural and cultural environment. The negative environmental and social impacts of uncontrolled housing have been identified as a major challenge. The current Three Year Plan has focused on the development of safe, cost-effective and environment-friendly public developments and housing for the poor. The national goal is to mitigate the adverse effects of human activities and development works through the encouragement of the concept of green development. Failure to meet the increasing demand for infrastructure and services has led to incremental type of projects to ease the crisis. This means initiatives on sustainable development are presently lacking.

 

Issues and challenges

The normal course of transformation of a primitive economy to a modern one has never been a sustainable one. With ever-increasing shortfall in infrastructure and services, the government is trying to cope with the emerging challenges by any means. This has become a major threat, as crisis management strategies are unlikely to be adequately sustainable. In our case, dwelling units and vehicles are growing in size. Use of electrical equipments is increasing. The consumption of energy is likely to increase due to traffic congestion and poor management. Climate change disasters are increasing. Low-income settlements are located in disaster-prone areas. Poverty and incidence of diseases increase their vulnerability to CC by reducing resilience. People and their activities are responsible for CC. Failure to adapt to and cope with climate change disasters leads to environmental deterioration. These have made infrastructure increasingly deficient and costly. The poor lose the most from the damage of ecosystem goods and services in the context of climate change conditions. Nepal should consider the following while dealing with climate change issues:

·         Although there are policies related to climate change and green development, these have little influence on the path of development that Nepal is likely to follow because of other more pressing needs.

·         Being a very poor country, Nepal’s economic prosperity depends on her relationship with her big neighbors, India and China. Despite their spectacular economic growth and perhaps because of this, these countries are facing challenges in promoting green development. This means these countries while helping Nepal in her pursuit for economic development will view Nepal as a convenient place to pass on more polluting activities and goods. This will impair the existing traditional potentials for green development in Nepal. This will influence the evolution of policy as well.

·         It is difficult to understand and assess the base line trend. As a matter of fact, it is unpredictable due to the dependency on outside economies.  With the intrusion, the trend without such projects could be dangerously unsustainable. The recent development that took place in Kathmandu shows this could vary widely.  Moreover, policy adjustments are generally initiated whenever new types of projects crop up. However, BOCM initiatives may require major changes in the policy environment. This is because there is no seriousness in CC issues from the government side at present. In this context, it will not be easy to make BOCM projects work. This implies the need for sustaining the policy environment. This will require capacity building for enhancing resilience.

·         Nepal is a low GHG emitter and likely to remain so for long, given the necessary support to resist the outside influence. Since Nepal is a low emitter, whenever other issues come up, GHG emission becomes a low priority.

·         Infrastructure projects face problems even when we do not consider environment. There is a lack of understanding that their products should enhance development to ensure funding in a sustainable way only. Service takers will be able to pay for these only when their productivity increases enough due to the consumption of the services. The output of any BOCM project needs to be integrated with the overall sustainable development framework.

 

The Key Challenges are:

·         How to provide housing, infrastructure and services to the growing population while reducing per capita GHG emissions?

·         How to address CC imperatives while coping with growing economic activities?

 

CDM provides opportunities to Nepal to access global environmental fund for creating carbon sinks or implementing projects that mitigate CC. However, complex procedures and time-consuming negotiations make this not easy. Policy should ensure what we receive from BOCM for being more sustainable will be spent on sustainable ways so that Nepal will have more collaboration in the future. To address the foregoing issues, there should be a policy shift to look at communities and ecosystem. Integration of outside influences is necessary so that after the completion of the projects, unsustainable ways are not revived.

Possible Areas for BOCM Initiatives

·         Use of land readjustment in the production of housing and infrastructure. Integration of land use planning with transport will help reduce CC.

·         Compact and mixed-use developments. These have several benefits in terms of GHG emissions:

                -               Reduced costs for heating and cooling resulting from smaller homes and shared walls in multi-unit dwellings.

                -               Reduced transmission and distribution loss (system loss) and leakage as well as maintenance costs in the use of energy systems for cooling, heating and power generation.

                -               Reduced per capita travelled distance in freight deliveries and by private vehicles. Population density increases accessibility to essential service destinations.

·         Land-use planning and development designs to limit energy use in the expanding areas of existing cities and in new urban areas to reduce environmental load.

·         Urban development of old areas of the city to encourage densification and mixed-use development to reduce energy use in the city. The experience of Bhaktapur will be relevant,

·         Renewal of existing housing stock and urban layout and design at a neighborhood scale to reduce energy use in the city.

·         Strengthening governance system.

 

Conclusion

Sustainable development is the development that integrates the growth, equity, and environmental dimensions of development through a process of balancing these components with reference to the stage of development of a nation at a particular time through good governance. Given the poverty level, the vision of sustainable development for Nepal is economic growth and prosperity with due consideration to equity and environment to enhance the ability to sustain the economic growth for a longer period. One effective way of addressing this is to focus on CC issues where equity and environment are simultaneously addressed without having to lose anything as regards to economic growth. BOCM should help sustain the sustainable pathways through the transfer of sustainable technologies and products. Integration of the project for using its sustainable products into the sustainable development framework is critical for making impacts. Infrastructure projects should not therefore be viewed in isolation as their sustainability depends largely on the use of their products by the economy as a whole in the contribution towards sustainable development, Creation of sustainable communities and settlements will help identify and implement sustainable infrastructure projects. 

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