The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD)
used to be seen as major hope for advocacy of Mountain Agenda and scientific
developments in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region and globally when noted experts
below offered leadership to some of the most recognized works of ICIMOD. Please
find below a tentative timeline (in chronological order):
Dhital,
M. R.; Deoja, B.; Thapa, B.; Wagner, A. and number of other experts pioneered work on
Mountain Risk Engineering (MRE) in the early 1990s, whose handbook provided
ready references of number of major construction works in Himalayas throughout
1990s and 2000s.
Prof
Jayanta Bandyopadhyay,
an Indian National working at ICIMOD was leading drafting of Chapter 13 of Agenda
21 (output document of the UN Conference on Environment and Development-UNCED,
aka Rio Conference or Earth Summit) during early 1990s.
Prof.
Narpat Singh Jodha,
an Indian National working at ICIMOD defined mountains in terms of Mountain Specificities
during late 1980s/early 1990s, which is still seen as the most widely accepted
way of defining mountains and analyzing mountain issues and several positive
and negative attributes.
Dr.
Mahesh Baskota, a
Nepalese National and former Deputy Director General of ICIMOD pioneered
Mountain Agenda Advocacy in the entire Asia Pacific region by leading organization
of the Sustainable Development of Mountain Areas of Asia (SUDEMAA) Conference in
1994, that institutionalised global Mountain Forum in Asia Pacific region
through establishment of the Asia Pacific Mountain Network at ICIMOD with more
than half dozen sub-nodes across the region. This pioneer work formally linked
ICIMOD with rest of the world for Mountain Agenda advocacy.
Mr.
Surendra Shrestha, Mr. Basanta Shrestha, Nepalese Nationals working at ICIMOD and others founded MENRIS division
in early 1990s, which pioneered GIS and Remote Sensing work in the entire HKH
region and trained thousands of experts in all ICIMOD countries.
Mr.
Pradeep Mool, Mr.
Samjwal Ratna Bajracharya, Mr. Basanta Shrestha, Mr Sharad Joshi
(Nepalese nationals) and Mr. Deoraj Gurung (Bhutanese national) working
at ICIMOD, among others, broke the silence about scientific understanding of Ice
and Glaciers related researches in the region by developing baseline data in
early 2000s and periodically updating them until recently.
Dr.
Madhav Karki, Dr. Kamal Baskota and Dr Bhaskar Singh Karky, Nepalese nationals, among
others penetrated climate change discussions at ICIMOD and took ICIMOD to
global stage to advocate Mountain Agenda within climate change discussions from
2004-2012. These experts conceptualized and established provision of organizing
dedicated Mountain Day as part of the UNFCCC meetings, helped prepared
Government of Nepal to establish the Mountain Initiative (aka Mountain Alliance
Initiative), helped Government of Bhutan for successful Living Himalayas Climate
Summit and helped Indian mountain stakeholders replicate and learn from Mountain
Initiative of Nepal.
Mr.
Tek Jung Mahat
and Mr. Daan Boom, Nepalese and Dutch Nationals working at ICIMOD gave a
new height to the Asia Pacific Mountain Network (APMN) from 2007-2013, making
it the most active virtual network of mountain stakeholders globally, conceptualizing
and establishing first and largest platforms to capacitate and engage Media and
Youth in Mountain Agenda Advocacy. During this period APMN trained over 570
youth from 20 Asia Pacific countries and over 75 media persons from all HKH and
South Asian countries to research, understand, take action and report as well
as advocate mountain issues, and developed a virtual network of over 6,000 stakeholders.
This partnership also gave new directions to Knowledge Management approach at
ICIMOD with development and introduction of a large set of KM tools, such as preparations
of thematic digests, back to office reports, e-conference, e-surveys,
e-election, digital photo contests, knowledge forums and brown bag seminars, write-shops
etc.
Dr.
Madhav Karki, Dr. Golam Rasul and Mr. Tek Jung Mahat, Nepalese and Bangaladeshi
nationals together with global mountain stakeholders such as Mountain Partnership,
Mountain Forum, CONDESAN, BIND, NTFP-EP, Indian Mountain Initiative and Governments
of Nepal, Peru, Switzerland and Austria, and HE Gyan Acharya, High
Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing
Countries and Small Island Developing States and Permanent Representative of
Nepal to the United Nations as well as Chair of the Global Coordination Bureau
of the Group of Least Developed Countries organized massive preparations to
find better place for Mountains in the Rio+20 processes in 2011/12. Supported with more
than 30 major events and number of background studies, success of this work is
seen in the form of Rio+20 Outcome Document, in which three paragraphs are
dedicated to mountains. This is the most important achievement so for the mountain
stakeholders worldwide.
Sadly
with the ongoing politics at ICIMOD, most of these contributors are maintaining
a distance with ICIMOD and we fear ICIMOD may never see again such beautiful
works if the present mismanagement at the Centre is not corrected.
it is however not clear as to what is the actual mismanagement going on in there and the politics as mentioned. correct word could be corruption instead of politics as in the article
ReplyDeletesources reveal, in contrary to the mandated approach and expectations from it, the centre is involved in several other activities that overrule the law of the Government of Nepal (host country), promote position, gender and color based discrimination, manipulate institutional realities, advance suspicious activities in selected member countries, and partner with corporate houses that are found environment unfriendly and suspected for their involvement in trade of plant and animal products violating provisions associated with indigenous knowledge and Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Sources add, the governance at the centre itself is questionable as many staffs are recruited without meeting minimum criteria and fully ignoring, avoiding and overruling the Centre’s agreement with the Government of Nepal and Board of Directors approved institutional documents that should guide activities at the centre. Furthermore, several staffs at the Centre are questioned for violating and abusing diplomatic immunities and privileges offered thus affecting the economy of the host country and creating unnecessary divides between national and foreign staffs working at the centre. The Centre’s approach to work with media is also questioned as some sources close to centre find them fishy. Sources claim most of these activities are taking place with direct protection and instructions from Centre’s Directors themselves, which is a serious threat to Centre’s progress as a well disciplined entity. Contacted ICIMOD staff and well-wishers revealed whoever questions on these malpractices, they get removed from the Centre without any logic. They referred some organised conspiracy against honest staffs who raised these issues and requested to keep their name private.
ReplyDeleteUrging to expose these bitter realities we have received 33 compelling real stories from concerned people, that we will be relieving one after other, with the aim of informing respective governments, donors, media and civil society and create pressure so ICIMOD management takes necessary actions to correct the mistakes as soon as possible so it can flourish as a clean and healthy regional institution in the years to come.