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Climate Discussion Series: “Climate Change and Environment in National Budget”Event Report

7/21/2014Clean Energy Nepal

1. IntroductionGovernment of Nepal prepared the National Budget for the fiscal year 2071/72 and presented it to the entire nation in the Constitution Assembly on 13 July 2014. The budget is aimed towards achieving economic growth, poverty reduction, employment generation and creating foundations for overall socio-economic development. The budget is also poised to graduate Nepal from a Least Developed Country status as defined by the UN. While formulating the budget, I have given priority to those programs which directly benefit the people and at the same time deliver results through optimum utilization of available resources within the country.

With such an ambitious target, the government presented a total budget of Rs. 618 billion. This budget has also focused on Renewable Energy, Solid Waste Management and other environmental issue with due highlights to the rising issues of Climate Change.

2. ObjectivesThe main objective of this Discussion was to initiate a critical dialogue on the recently unveiled National Budget (2071/72) within the civil society members and stakeholders especially in regards to environment and climate change.

3. ProceedingsMr. Raju P. Chettri, CEN facilitated the entire discussion. He mentioned that it was highly important for civil society representatives to review the budget with a critical lens to see how environment and climate change have been prioritized but the nation in the budget.

3.1 Presentation 1: Status of environment and climate change funding in fiscal year 2071/72Mr. Manjeet Dhakal presented about the status of environment and climate change funding in the fiscal year budget 2014/15 and the occasion. He started the presentation with basic facts: 1926 children dying in Nepal alone due to environmental pollution and the huge economic burden on the national economy due to various environmental inconsideration. Further Nepal being one of the most vulnerable countries due to climate change has to bear serious brunt of climate change. With agriculture contributing to one third of National GDP and 65-75.5% employment, it is the economic backbone of the country, and highly at risk due to climate change. Hence, the future cost of climate change could be 2-3% of national GDP/ year by mid century. Hence, this year Nepal Government has allocate Rs. 1.75 billion for agriculture research programme, Rs. 560 million budget to stop the encroachment of the area of Bagmati river (the major river system of Kathmandu Valley), continuation of rain water harvesting program and Rs.630 million for Green and environment friendly tourism.

Apart from these, the government has proposed huge subsidies for various adaptation technologies and has allocated Nrs. 15,100,000 for efficient weather forecasting system. Similarly, as per the Pilot Project for Climate Resilience (PPCR) being piloted in Nepal, government has clearly allocated NRs. 197500000 for

the loan component of the PPCR. This year the Climate Change Budget component has increased by 0.39% than the fiscal year 2013/14 allocation, which makes a total of 10.74% of national budget in this fiscal year 2014/15. Out of this amount, 5.33% projects are directly related to climate change (highly relevant) and 5.07% allocated amount is indirectly related to climate change. “Most of the climate change budget has been derived from foreign aid, however the government has also proactively allocated certain amount of climate change budget from government’s own resources, this shows that government is growing serious about climate change issues, still more efforts are needed” he concluded.

3.2 Keynote Speech: Mr. Bhuwan Karki, Under Secretary, Ministry of Finance, Government of Nepal

Mr. Bhuwan Karki, Under Secretary, Ministry of Finance also highlighted the key specialities of the budget and briefly spoke about the underlying challenges for proper implementation of budget. All projects and program will be implemented in local and central level through the involvement of Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment, Ministry of Energy, Ministry of Urban development, Ministry of forest, AEPC and continuous budget tracking will be done in all channels for its proper implementation. However, government of Nepal is facing serious challenges majority of which is largely due capacity Constraints of government and its lying ministries itself. “The UNFCCC focal ministry for Nepal, itself is not fully capacitated, in terms of number of staff and resources, Government accepts that more work needs to be done on capacity development,” he mentioned. Government of Nepal still needs to develop capacity to access and implement the different international fund. Coordination between the ministries is another challenge Government needs to overcome. Further clarification and implementation of NAPA is remaining, and Government has not allocated any resources on its own initiation for NAPA prioritized areas apart from the existing projects. It is easy to implement and utilize the fund of Climate Change by developing sectoral policy, and government needs to work on this too.

3.3 Presentation from the floor: Mr. Prashanta Khanal, Program Coordinator, Clean Energy Nepal

Mr. Prashanta Khanal, CEN also critically analyzed the budget with the lens of Sustainable Urban Mobility and provided his recommendations on better urban facility and highlighted the governments’ allocations and mis-allocations under the heading. “The government still hasn’t realized that Sustainable Urban Mobility is a solution to most of the environmental challenges including climate change,” he added.

4. Discussion

1. Tekjung Mahat

It is far important to know whether budget is used in the relative field and program will implemented or not then the how much budget is allocated. In a country like ours, where parliamentarians demand 5 crore from the government for undisclosed expenses, accountability is a prime issue. How is government planning to

make it more accountable? Also, government is incapacitated. If so, shouldn’t government invest in capacity building first and foremost?

2. Siddhartha Bajracharya, NTNC

Pre budget consultation workshop could contribute, suggest to budget preparation, and that is highly needed . If Nepal aims to shift from least developed country to developing country up to 2022, more work needs to be done and this is not enough. Also, we now have to calculate the ratio the budget of environment and environmental cost of development budget which makes clear what will be the future of our environment and it helps to future plan.

3. Batu Krishna Upreti

Budget allocation on environment sector is commitment of government for environment field. Civil society has to follow up and tracking governments program. Establishment of Climate Change centre is the only one target of Climate Change left to complete. Government has fulfilled all its ambitions. What is the budget allocation mechanism of Rastrapati Chure Sanrakshan program? This could be helpful and a replicable modality.

4. Jagdish Baral

In every activity and program of central level, experiences and learning of ground level must bring in central level. NAPA is comprehensive document for Climate Change. Are PPCR, Hariyo Ban , NAPs necessary for us? We need to analyze the rationale of the programs rather than being donor-driven.

5. Dipesh Chapagain, OXFAM

Budget did not address the program and issues of Climate Change Policy. Also, Government did not use of its own resources in budget. There is nothing new rather than continuation of the secured funds.

6. Aarjan Dixit, Care Nepal

Budget is more political document so allocation for environment sector is itself an important. I think we have to look overall to analyze the environment in budget. We have to analyze the impact of tourism, agriculture and other sector included in budget on environment.

5. Conclusion and Recommendations

Mr. Manjeet Dhakal , in his concluding remarks, mentioned that scope of this interaction program is very small, it includes only one small part of budget. He also committed that CEN will also contentiously organize such discussion and other programs on implementation of this budget. Mr. Bhuwan Karki mentioned that Sustainable Urban transportation program is unfortunately being late due to conflict between ministry and municipality, but has always been an important priority for Government. After implementation of the proposed programs like Kathmandu Sustainable Urban Transport Project, all our transportation system will be sustainable. He also agreed that the experiences and learning of grass root level are very much helpful for planning process.

Mr. Raju Pandit Chhetri mentioned this is a national budget which aims to make Nepal a developing country by 2022. Hence, if we want to meet this target we have to increase our absorption capacity immediately. We have to raise our per capita income to 1500 from 700. For this we have conduct more and more development activities and our duty and concern is how to save our environment from the impact of this activities. In this regards civil society organizations have a key role to play to ensure that we are not heading to unsustainable development.

The discussion ended with following recommendations:

Government of Nepal should first and foremost strive and plan to build the capacities of its lying ministries and divisions to access more funds and implement them for the benefit of grassroot level vulnerable communities .

Government of Nepal should learn from past mistakes. Environmental safeguards are crucial for sustainable development and if Nepal is to promote from LDC status to Middle-Income countries, Nepal needs adequate sustainable development where environmental risks needs to be properly calculated and mitigated in the development process.

Civil Society Organization like CEN should facilitate dialogue between Government of Nepal and the CSOs prior to budget declaration so that comments and concerns can be incorporated into the national budget. The consultations and dialogues should be held at different levels and on different issues more critically to sensitize the government on the urgency of the issues.

6. Annexes

Annex 1: Schedule and Banner of the eventSpecial Interaction Program on

Environment and Climate Change in the National Budget

Shrawan 5, 2071(21st July 2014)DECC Hall, Tripureshwor, World Trade Center

Program ScheduleTime Remarks

2:00 – 2: 15 PM Registration and WelcomeFacilitator: Raju Pandit Chhetri , CEN

2:15- 3: 15 PM Remarks/ presentation Presentation: Environment and Climate Change Issues in Fiscal Year

Budget 2071/72- Manjeet Dhakal Remarks: Bhuwan Karki, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Finance Special Remarks: Honorable Gagan Thapa, Member, CA

3: 15 – 3: 55 PM Open Discussion

3:55 – 4: 00 PM Closing and Wrap Up Sunil Acharya , Program Director, CEN(followed by Hi- Tea)

Climate Discussion SeriesSpecial Interaction Program on

Environment and Climate Change in the National Budget

Shrawan 5, 2071(21st July 2014)

DECC Hall, Tripureshwor, World Trade Center

Annex 2: Registration of the eventS. No

Name Organization/ Institution

Designation Email Contact No

1 Peter Kayastha

Power Shift Nepal

Research and Policy Team

[email protected] 9849825417

2 Yogendra Chitrakar

ECCA Director [email protected] 9851069348

3 Kamala Thapa Magar

NEFIN CCPP Gender Officer [email protected]

9841332288

4 Bhuban Karki

MoF Under Secretary


5 Batu Uprety


6 Dipesh Chapagain

Oxfam Program Officer


7 Krishna Duwal

SWASH-Nepal Intern [email protected] 9841110508

8 Sunila maharjan

UMN Advocacy Officer


9 SB Bajracharya

NTNC ED [email protected] 5526571

10 DayaSagar Shrestha

NGO Federation

ED [email protected] 9841100432

11 Nirmala Adhikari

The Kathmandu Post


12 Tek J Mahat

Build Nepal Advisor [email protected] 9840057090

13 Soren Jensen

CARE Nepal CS and Advocacy Advisor

[email protected]

14 Bikash Adhikari

Forest Action Researcher [email protected] 9856033727

15 Arjan Dixit CARE [email protected] 9840016967

16 Raju P. Chettri

CEN Advisor [email protected]

17 Suraj Maharjan

Abhiyan Asst Editor [email protected] 9841471327

18 Subodh Gautam

Nagarik daily S. Correspondent


19 Manjeet Dhakal

CEN Member [email protected] 4464981

mailto:[email protected]










20 lalmani Wagle

NYCA Regional Coordinator


21 Rassu Manandhar

CEN Project Associate


22 Suman Udas

CEN Program Coordinator


23 Pallab Regmi

CEN PC [email protected] 4464981

24 Jagdish Chandra Baral

Freelancer [email protected] 9841966172

25 Krity Shrestha

CEN R & P Officer [email protected] 9803378582

26 Prashanta Khanal

CEN PC [email protected] 9841401236

27 Basanta Paudel

CEN Project Associate









Annex 3: Background Paper on Climate Change and Environment in National Budget

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Annex 4: photographs of the event

Figure 1 Participants during the discussion.

Figure 2 Mr. Manjeet Dhakal, CEN during the presentation

Figure 3 Participants giving their comments on National Budget

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