Archive for: Nepal


Weathering Change takes us to Ethiopia, Nepal and Peru to hear the stories of women as they struggle to care for their families, while enduring crop failures and water scarcity. The film shows how women and families are already adapting to the climate change challenges that threaten their health and their livelihoods. The film is accompanied by a brief advocacy guide for viewers.

Year: 2011

Source: PAI [Film | Guide]

    This report describes the accomplishments and lessons learned by the Environmental Health Project (CDM) as part of the design and implementation of a pilot project to address community health and conservation issues, as requested by USAID/Nepal. The project was devised to build the self-help capacity of CFUGs to implement and sustain integrated approaches to population, health and environment (PHE) that also contribute to sustainable livelihood development. The pilot engaged 114 CFUGs in a variety of PHE advocacy, awareness-raising and service delivery activities during 2006-2008. RIMS-Nepal, WWF-Nepal, and ADRA-Nepal collaborated with CDM on this initiative. The livelihood, health and conservation accomplishments detailed here provide insights and best practices for PHE practitioners.

    Year: 2009

    Source: United States Agency for International Development | CDM International

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      This report describes the results of a 2007 evaluation of WWF (World Wildlife Fund) PHE (Population, Health and Environment) projects sponsored by Johnson & Johnson and USAID (the U.S. Agency for International Development). The PHE sites were located in Africa and Asia, where human-environment interactions are in constant flux, human populations are growing rapidly, and they depend most directly on and affect most profoundly some of the richest forest and marine ecosystems on Earth. The PHE projects facilitated basic health care and RH (reproductive health) provision with the working thesis that improving human health and environmental conservation jointly adds value to each independently. The report also recommends future actions on sustainability and scale up of PHE approaches, improved data collection and monitoring and technical support.

      Year: 2008

      Source: World Wildlife Fund

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        USAID commissioned a team to review the SAGUN PHE project in Nepal. In this evaluation, the team identified gaps, opportunities, lessons, and practices specific to the PHE approach. The team gathered with Community Forest User Groups, the Ministry of Health, and various national and international NGOs to discuss these findings in an effort to create a PHE project that would best fit the needs of communities. This report builds off these findings and focuses on PHE recommendations for Nepal moving forward.

        Year: 2006

        Source: United States Agency for International Development

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          This report focuses on the results of a USAID/Nepal funded project, Strengthening Actions for Good Governance and Utilization of Natural Resources (SAGUN) in various forested regions of Nepal. An analysis was made of the lessons learned and best practices for applying user-group management to forest conservation. Despite the some political unrest in the country, the assessment group discovered many positive key findings that demonstrated how the Community Forest User Groups (CFUGs) approach works well from all perspectives: improved grassroots-level governance capacity; improved livelihoods empowering and building the capacity of excluded groups and the poor; increased coverage and quality of forests covered, and the biodiversity and organisms protected; and low cost and effectiveness. User groups in forest or buffer zones proved to be a great entry point for integrating forest conservation with other social issues. This report discusses the future of the user group approach, and possibilities of integrating it with PHE, community-based development, or community forest conservation.

          Year: 2006

          Source: United States Agency for International Development

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            These maps by Population Action International shows how climate change and population dynamics will change the world over time. Country profiles of Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Nepal, and Peru are included with maps, graphs, videos, and additional resources on population, gender, and climate change trends. Interactive maps illustrate how climate change impacts, demographic trends, and the need for contraception are likely to affect countries’ abilities to adapt to climate change. The maps also identify 26 population and climate change hotspots. In many countries, a high proportion of women lack access to reproductive health services and contraceptives. Investments in family planning programs in these hotspots could improve health and well-being, slow population growth, and reduce vulnerability to climate change impacts.

            Year: 2011

            Source: PAI

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              Population, health, and environment (PHE) programs link conservation, health, and family planning interventions. These programs are generally located in biodiversity hotspots, where population pressure may contribute to environmental degradation. This review describes the general structure of PHE programs and provides examples to highlight various aspects of this approach. It focuses on a case study from the Integrating Population and Health into Forestry Management Agendas program in Nepal that addressed deforestation from fuel-wood harvesting, indoor air pollution from wood fires, acute respiratory infections related to smoke inhalation, as well as family planning in communities in Nepal’s densely populated forest corridors. Keys to the success of the project included empowerment of community forest user groups with PHE program know-how and appropriate technology. Lessons learned highlight the critical role that nongovernmental organizations can play to catalyze cross-sectoral responses to complex development issues. The PHE approach can be effective for achieving sustainable development and meeting conservation and health objectives.

              Year: 2011

              Source: Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine

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                The “Healthy People, Healthy Environment” film series transports viewers to Tanzania, Nepal, and Ethiopia to explore an innovative approach to international development called PHE. Each film documents the daunting challenges facing rural villages, including rapid population growth, environmental degradation, and food insecurity. But “Healthy People, Healthy Environment” inspires hope by showcasing the community-driven solutions that seek to protect both people and the ecosystems that sustain them. Includes three high-quality documentaries filmed on location:

                • “Healthy People, Healthy Environment: Integrated Development in Tanzania” (BALANCED project, Pangani and Bagamoyo districts, northern Tanzania)
                • “Scaling the Mountain: Protecting Forests for Families in Nepal” (RIMS project, Jogimara and Naubise, foothills of Nepal)
                • “Paving the Way: Ethiopia’s Youth on the Road to Sustainability” (GPSDO Project, Gurage Zone, Ethiopia)

                Year: 2015

                Source: The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

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                  After a decade long civil war, Nepal experienced continuing violence and turmoil. The increasingly violent struggle has undermined development initiatives and caused tourism to drop 40 percent. This article outlines how environmental stress and population dynamics play a significant role in creating the underlying conditions for acute insecurity and instability which ultimately leads to a cycle of more environmental stress in the region. It is a difficult cycle to stop unless the underlying demographic and environmental conditions receive more attention than they have to date.

                  Year: 2005

                  Source: The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

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                    This WWF-Nepal case study explores the impact of the PHE component of the WWF-Nepal Terai Arc Landscape (TAL) Project on women’s empowerment. The key research questions focus on 1) how PHE activities contribute to women’s empowerment and (2) how empowered women contribute to conservation outcomes. This case study piloted the WWF Women’s Economic, Social and Political Empowerment (WWESPE) Tool. The aim is to help conservation and/or other PHE project staff understand how their PHE (or conservation-only) projects contribute to women’s empowerment and the conservation outcomes and learn how to enhance these women’s empowerment impacts. The case study found that the TAL and TAL-PHE approach helped to advance women’s empowerment and their involvement in conservation in project communities. The report found that the extent and pattern of women’s economic, social and political empowerment varied within project communities, but the use of adult and youth peer educators and inclusion of a gender module in the peer educator trainings successfully contributed to women’s empowerment.

                    Year: 2010

                    Source: World Wildlife Fund

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