THE SMALL EARTH NEPAL

The Small Earth Nepal (SEN), in collaboration with the Consortium for Capacity Building (CCB) at INSTAAR at the University of Colorado, Boulder, USA, Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Thailand, and Small Earth Australia (SEA), Australia, successfully organized a workshop entitled “Policy Brief ‘Writeshop’ for Early Career Researchers in South Asia” in Kathmandu, Nepal on 1-3 May 2014. The writeshop was supported by the Asia Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN)-under the CAPaBLE programme. There were 27 participants from six South Asian countries (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka) in the writeshop.

In the opening session, a special guest, Dr. Akio Takemoto, Director of APN Secretariat expressed his gratitude to join the meeting and extended his wishes for the success of the programme. He remarked on the importance of such types of programs to build the capacity of young scientists in bridging scientific research with policy.’ Dr. Takemoto also spoke about the activities of APN and how it had been supporting regional research activities in its member countries.

Dr. Madan Lall Shrestha, Scientific Planning Group (SPG) member for APN, said that participation in such type of workshop was the first time in his 40 years of professional career. The policy brief is a BRIDGE to connect science with policy; Dr. Shrestha emphasized the importance of policy brief writing. Dr. Shrestha, being involved in APN as a member of the scientific community, highlighted how APN had been instrumental in science and policy through its support of scientific research and capacity-building programmes.

In the session, Dr. Sangam Shrestha, Associate Professor at AIT, and Gregory Pierce, Scientist at CCB elaborated on the importance of a policy brief and its implementation. The opening session commenced with a welcome speech and program highlight by Er. Sudeep Hada, Director of SEN; and concluded with a vote of thanks to the guests, participants, collaborators, and the supporters of the programme, by Session-Chair, Associate Professor, and the project leader Mr. Khemraj Dahal.

The opening session was followed by the technical sessions led by Dr. Hari Dhungana, the lead trainer for the writeshop Dr. Dhungana shared the different theoretical aspects of Policy Brief writing and its format. The participants, divided into five different groups based on their research sectors, worked with their respective mentors. During the write shop, each participant presented their policy brief after proper guidance from the mentors. The panel of five mentors selected the twelve best policy briefs based on the different criteria set for the purpose. The selected policy brief was awarded USD 100 each for refining their policy briefs for the publications in a peer-reviewed document.

The evening on an opening day was concluded with a ‘policy forum’, where altogether more than sixty participants from South Asia actively participated. The participants were scientists, policymakers, students, and journalists; and they debated the national and regional issues. . Panelists in the policy forum were Dr. Dinesh Chandra Devkota, Former Vice-Chair of the National Planning Commission (NPC), Government of Nepal; Mr. Batu Krishna Upreti, Chair of the Least Developed Country (LDC), Expert Group; Mr. Purushottam Ghimire, Joint Secretary-National Planning Commission (NPC)/Government of Nepal; Ms. Shabnam Siwakoti, Department of Agriculture/Government of Nepal; Dr. Bhanu Neupane, United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and Dr. Bimala Devkota, Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (NAST). The forum was moderated by Er. Mahendra Bahadur Gurung, Former Joint Secretary at Government of Nepal and Immediate Past President at Nepal Engineers’ Association (NEA).