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Building Up Capacity of Local Partners in Nepal

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Nepal
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UMCOR
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UMCOR continues to work with several partners to meet the needs of Nepal earthquake survivors

By David Tereshchuk*

Nearly four months have now passed since Nepal’s devastating earthquake, and UMCOR, the United Methodist Committee on Relief, continues to both fund and support a broad range of partner agencies who are working for the country’s recovery.

“We have a lot of partners, and a lot of different partners doing different things,” said Francesco Paganini, executive for International Disaster Response at UMCOR.

The in-country partners currently number ten and range from major international institutions with local connections who have intervened to help, like Canada’s GlobalMedic to smaller, purely locally-based organizations like the Nepal Community Empowerment Group (NCEG).

The services extended to earthquake-affected populations range broadly from emergency shelter kits through to temporary learning centers for children whose schooling has been drastically disrupted.

And, in addition to its supplying cash grants, the careful and deliberate kind of support that UMCOR gives is fundamental to the organization’s approach to partnering with others.

Building capacity

Paganini pointed out, “The Nepal emergency is a telling example not just of our responding quickly, but also of our pursuing a determined course to build up the capacity of our local partners.”

In a disaster like April’s earthquake, which killed about 9,000 people and demolished more than half a million homes, UMCOR’s proactive support includes encouraging groups who apply for a grant to engage in some rigorous self-examination. They are urged to ask themselves if they will truly be providing the most necessary, and the most effective kind of help for communities in need.

For instance, said Paganini, an applicant may want to provide clean water. “If their first intention is to distribute water-sachets,” he said, “we’ll carefully cross-question them and raise matters like the environmentally harmful side-effects of such containers. We’ll steer them in the direction of, say providing purification kits.”

UMCOR has helped smaller Nepalese groups in particular by passing on to them global humanitarian knowledge that has been gained over time, including the reasons why certain best practices have been developed.

Encouraging Best Practices

In Paganini’s experience, local partners are extremely willing to accept such guidance, and often, he said, “If small groups are fully meeting internationally-agreed best practices, then it helps to foster their own growth in positive directions.”

Also involved in response to the earthquake were United Methodist Women (UMW), who recommended to UMCOR two Nepalese women’s groups.

UMW’s liaison officer Carol Van Gorp reported “It was good to be part of the collaboration. And, it was impressive to see the UMCOR team, respectfully and patiently work with the groups to improve their plans.”

“These groups had been accustomed to much education work and awareness-raising,” Van Gorp added, “but not so much to distribution systems for materials needed in an emergency.”

One group, Nepal Mahila Bishwai Sangh (the Nepalese equivalent of the YWCA) was helped to prepare an effective plan for marginalized, poor women and their families to receive comprehensive aid packages. The second, smaller group, Milijuli Samaj Nepal, was enabled to distribute hygiene kits to more than 1,200 adolescent girls.

Jack Amick, UMCOR’s Assistant General Secretary for International Disaster Response, commented: “The process of coaching a partner as they refine and perfect their grant is surely as important as the food or other materials that are distributed.”

Van Gorp expressed the hope that “UMCOR’s sensitive cultivation of good programs implemented by local partners will now be an influence on UMCOR’s national humanitarian work around the globe.”

*David Tereshchuk is a journalist and media critic who contributes regularly to UMCOR.org