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Phase: Review

Civil War Monitoring Portal

Identifying, collecting and monitoring the current status of 12 years long civil war victims and affected area of Nepal.

Photo of Nikesh Balami
18 8

Written by

Monitoring Portal Mockup Monitoring Portal Mockup
The Maoists Soldiers The Maoists Soldiers

Explain your project idea (2,000 characters)

Peace and prosperity of Nepal is at stake due to sluggish development and growth over the years. The main factors are the 12 years of civil war between Nepal government and CPN Maoist which increasingly affected Nepal’s economic performance since 2001. Economic growth slowed to an average of 1.9% over the FY 2002-04 period compared to 4.9% in the decade preceding that. More than 12,000 people have been killed, physical infrastructure worth at least $ 250 million has been destroyed, nearly 400,000 rural families have been internally displaced while thousands of others have crossed over to India in search of work. The private investment rate has declined from 15.4% in 1996 to 12.6% in 2004, as private investors have desisted from making investments and foreign investors have stayed away and economic disruptions have increased and development expenditures have declined sharply. We propose to build Open Data/Information Portal by including comprehensive features, which will include stories and details about the victims and missing people in the conflict, Lifestyle of the Mao Soldiers post civil war, Work analysis of United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) to monitor the disarmament of Maoist rebels, Economic growth before and after the war, Reconstruction post-war, Human Rights violation stories, Agencies working on peace development, empowerment post-war and Empowerment programs etc. These data & information will serve as the data-driven implementations to reform the affected ones. The data of the portal will especially focus on the families of war victims and missing people who are under the poverty line and are still fighting for their rights with the government of Nepal. We also plan to support the rehabilitation and reconstruction of those areas by increasing their access to technology and empowering them for entrepreneurship and local business. This will motivate donor agencies, INGO, CSOs, local government and establish the ideas as a national project.

Who are the beneficiaries? (1,000 characters)

Beneficiaries of our project are more than 1 million populations of different districts of Nepal, who suffered from the 12 years long civil war. In the civil war, local people of different districts were involved. Our analysis and data collection, we can point out the areas that are affected severely or partially by the civil war. By these data, it is easy to point out which areas are bounced back and lifestyle of people became normal. For example, we can take Sanfebagar, headquarter of Achham district where the Airport and other physical infrastructures are severely damaged in the war. But recently the airport is reopened and different agencies are doing empowerment work to help the people for a normal lifestyle. Projects will especially focus on the families of war victims, missing people who are under the poverty line and are still fighting for their rights with the government of Nepal and the Maoist soldiers who didn't join the Nepal army after the sign of the peace agreement.

How is your idea unique? (1,000 characters)

We plan to integrate technology with the subject which people care & can directly relate to. We want to lead by example and make project data-driven, hence monitoring the progress of development and war-affected people lives would be easier and what are the outliers, lacking & things that should be done for effective empowerment, reconstruction and rehabilitation would be easily pointed out. We plan to collect the data and information in 3 different phase: History, Improvements and upcoming Prosperity plan of government and international agencies. We will develop and publish all the collected data in an open portal in an easily understandable format which can be further use and reused by different stakeholders. INGO, donors, the government can use information which can help them figure out the improvement and establish the projects as a national campaign. Project will also help to find the marginal groups and community who are still awaiting government responses of resettlement.

Idea Proposal Stage (choose one)

  • Prototype: I have done some small tests or experiments with prospective users to continue developing the idea.

Tell us more about your organization/company (1 sentence and website URL)

The different kinds of work and services provided by Open Knowledge Nepal. The different kinds of work and services provided by Open Knowledge Nepal.
Open Knowledge Nepal is as a non-profit civic tech organization comprised of openness aficionados, Who believe that openness of data is powerful in order to have a participatory government with civil society, eventually leading to sustainable development. The organization has been involved in research, advocacy, training, workshops and developing tools related to open knowledge. Website: http://oknp.org

Expertise in sector

  • 3-5 years

Organization Filing Status

  • Yes, we are a registered non-profit.

In 3-4 sentences, tell us the inspiration or story that encouraged you to start this project.

Recently Sanfebagar airport is reopened which was severely damaged in the war and there are many stories coming out frequently about the court cases of the murders, success stories of the Maoist soldiers post civil war, missing people’s families still trying to find some information and victims families. Over 60,000 people who have filed complaints with the two commissions set up in 2014 to investigate the murders, rapes and forced disappearances perpetrated by both sides during the conflict.

Please explain how your selected topic areas are influenced, in the local context of your project (1,000 characters).

Our project data and information will serve for the data-driven implementations to reform the affected ones. Data-driven implements like empowerment of the affected victims, skill development programmes to uplift socio-economic status who are yet to be compensated for their loss. Civil war obviously had long-term effects on peace, prosperity, and planet. We saw exploitation of human rights and peace. Even now we are hearing voices about how victims have not been provided with justice yet. Existing court cases are proof of long-term effects of war on peace. Damage on then available resources and political unrest arose due to war has resulted in us the long-term economic crisis and negligible economic growth of overall nation compared to current development rate of the globe. Our portal will provide information about affected regions and if damaged infrastructures are reconstructed or not which will help to reform damaged regions and have a positive impact to fellow victims.

Who will work alongside your organization in the project idea? (1,000 characters)

The project will have different partners and collaboration. The list of potential collaborators are: National Human Rights Commission, Human Rights Organization of Nepal, Ministry of Women, Children & Social Welfare, Social Welfare Council, Robotic Association of Nepal, Nepal Flying Labs etc.

Please share some of the top strengths identified in the community which your project will serve (500 characters)

After the adoption of the new constitution, Nepal enters the federal structure with 753 local bodies. Due to the federal system, the maximum rights have been automatically transferred to local levels to empower citizens and is expected to augment the regime of transparency and accountability in the public affairs. The growth in the use of technology and the youths getting motivated to do something for the betterment of to county has been identified as one of the top strength in the community.

Geographic Focus

Hilly region - Province 5 and 6, Nepal

How many months are required for the project idea? (500 characters)

Total project duration will be around 3 Years (36 months): Research: 6 months Data Collection and Analysis: 9 months Implementation: 6 months Inter-connection with Government, Donors and others: 5 months Awareness and Capacity Building: 8 months Miscellaneous and Wrap-up: 2 months

Did you submit this idea to our 2017 BridgeBuilder Challenge? (Y/N)

  • No

Attachments (1)

Civil War Monitoring Portal.pdf

The initial concept note of civil ware monitoring portal.

18 comments

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Photo of Ashley Tillman
Team

Hi Nikesh Balami great to have you in the Challenge! I'm interested to learn a little more about how you would reach individuals and better understand your vision for portal experience would be like? Also tagging in bikash gurung for additional questions or thoughts!

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Photo of Nikesh Balami
Team

Thank you Ashley Tillman it's our pleasures to be in the Challenge.

Regarding your queries about reaching individuals, we will be analyzing the data of province 5 and 6 provided by the government of Nepal to find the most affected areas and will be conducting our own digital survey to figure out the rehabilitation and reconstruction state of those affected households. We will be mobilizing around 100 volunteers in each province to collect the data through our app. Those volunteers will be the Youth Peace Ambassador who will be working in the field to understand the needs of the war affected areas and victims. The collected data will be integrated with the portal and shared in an understandable format. All this data will be published on our portal openly so everyone can use and reused it. We will be analyzing the data to find insights and publish it on the portal. The data will be mapped based on the vulnerability, economic situation etc. The survey will also help us to figure out what people exactly needs and the lacking points.

The core aim of ours is to build the monitoring and citizens engagement platform, were individuals also report their issues and we will work to connect them with government and donor agencies. After monitoring the issues and progress, we will be running the engagement program to uplift the social economic condition of war victims and connect them with the opportunities available. For example, In Karnali districts, they had a terrible revolt from Shiva Sena [Groups supporting Hinduism] started threatening and killing family who support other religion such as Buddhism, Christianity, Islam. In that kinds of situation, the local youths who have access to the internet can go through our portal to report the issues and ask support. With the information and data, the portal will have two option Seek Support and Give Support. The people who found themselves in the vulnerable situation can seek support through the portal by answering the series of questionnaires. Once they submitted the information our team will be in touch with them within 24 hours to verify the needs. After the verification, we will connect them with the local authority and other agencies who give support and also publicize their need in the main story of our website and social media etc, which will increase the chance of them getting more supporting hands. We will reach out them and provide the necessary support. The organization and individual who regularly provide the support can go through the portal list to find out the areas where people need the support most.

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Photo of bikash gurung
Team

Thanks Ashley Tillman  for the tag. I was inspired by this idea when Nikesh Balami  shared this to me and seeing them here is really amazing. I have been admirer of the work they have done so far on Open data and Open Knowledge here in Nepal.
Hi Nikesh, Its our pleasure to see your idea here for bridge builders challenge. I loved your concept and you were able to convey important information about your project quickly. Would love to learn how are you planning to sustain your idea in a long run? I am curious to know why did you choose provincial state no. 4 and provincial state no.5 ? Provincial state no.4 and provincial state no. 5 are two states which are not infrastructurally quite developed and are backwarded in terms of resources like smartphone access, network connectivity, broadband and digital literacy, how are we going to tackle this challenge while collecting these data in a long run, I can understand volunteers working for you would support in initial stage for data collection , how are you planning to collect the data in next stage? I am also willing to learn how the collaboration with provincial government looks like. Data generated from your portal may show the work of the government sluggish and unconcerned. Looking forward to learn more.

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Photo of Nikesh Balami
Team

Hi bikash gurung thank you so much for your kind words and queries.

Talking about the project sustainability, the collaboration with local and provincial government is something which we are currently brainstorming. As we all know, Nepal recently entered the federal structure and now have local government. This is the nice opportunity for us, we can collaborate with the local government to collect data, run awareness program and mobilize volunteer. In fact, they can adapt the project and reuse the system to monitor the effect of others humanitarian issues like an earthquake, floods etc. Since the portal is more like a collaboration platform, it would be owned by different stakeholders which will increase the sustainability and scalability opportunities.

We are currently incubating the project in province 4 and 5 because, according to the current data available from the government of Nepal, these areas are the most affected by the civil war. So with this problem comes an opportunity of doing, there are still lots of families who are awaiting the rehabilitation and reconstruction. Yes, we know both of the proposed province 4 and 5 are not quite developed, but through our project, we plan to work on it. As we work on the rehabilitation and the empowerment, we can run digital literacy program, collaborated with government and private organization to extended the internet connectivity to the affected places. We can make this an effort of many and tackle with all kinds of emerged challenges.

Very nice question about data collection, FYI we will be collecting and using the data in 3 phases.
1) From Governmental sources: We will harvest and analysis the previously available data to find out the insights related to the civil war, affected areas, issues etc.
2) Crowdsourcing: We will be mobilizing more than 100 volunteers in both province 5 and 6 to collect data and to understand the current situation of that areas. This will help us to track the rehabilitation state of those areas which needs more focus and highlight.
3) From NGO, INGO and Donor agencies: After the peace agreement, lots of different organization have been working here in Nepal. So, the data which they have collected can be interesting and important for many. We will collect those data from them and share or compare it with our portal.

After the completion of three-phase data collection, We believe the base will be ready and rest of the data will be all citizen-generated. The users who seek support and give support will generate the data.

Yes, the output of the portal and project may show the work of the government sluggish and unconcerned but this is the fact which we and government need to accept. This can also be the great opportunity for the government to improve their working methods and start working with citizens closely. We believe the collaboration with local government will solve this all.

Looking forward to continuing this discussion.

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Photo of bikash gurung
Team

Thanks for your answer and precise response. Best Wishes!

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Photo of Nikesh Balami
Team

Thank you bikash gurung , hoping for the best.

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