United Nations in Nepal

Nepal committed to the SDGs early on, and this commitment has been reaffirmed in key policy documents, such as the current 15th Development Plan and the 25 Year Long-Term Vision 2100 that internalises the Goals. SDGs codes are assigned for all national development programmes through the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework. Further, Nepal has prepared the SDG Status and Roadmap to localize the SDG indicators with baselines and targets for 2030. Other key documents are a SDGs Needs Assessment, a Costing and Financing Strategy, and additional SDGs Localization Guidelines. Finally, Nepal has conducted a Development Finance Assessment (DFA) to provide an overview of development finance flows and institutions and policies that can align finance with national development priorities. These are the goals the UN is working on in Nepal:

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Story

13 October 2020

Supporting Most Vulnerable Migrant Returnees to Meet Immediate Needs

Pabitra Jimba, (31) from Makawanpur District had been in foreign employment for over six years and had been able to support her family back home before she lost her most recent job in the United Arab Emirates to COVID 19. She had been stranded in that country for five months without job before she returned to Nepal in mid-July. She purchased flight tickets on her own as no one – the employer, host and home governments – provided her with support. Similarly, 27-year-old Sarita BK (name changed), originally from Morang district was on her way to Kuwait in March via India but was caught up by the nation-wide lockdown in India and got stuck there for next four months. Unaware that she was travelling undocumented without a work permit, she managed to arrive in Kathmandu in early July with support from various organizations and her relatives. She is a divorcee and is the sole breadwinner of her three-member family. Those are only examples of vulnerable Nepali returnee migrants hard-hit by the COVID 19 pandemic. According to the Government of Nepal, COVID 19 Crisis Management Committee (CCMC), a total of 51,441 Nepali migrants have been repatriated from abroad as of 14 August. According to various sources, an estimated 127,000 Nepalis abroad were in need of immediate assistance and 450,000 migrants excluding those working in India are projected to lose their jobs. This leaves migrants’ families facing the risks and acute consequences of not being able to afford basic needs such as food, education, health and nutrition. With hundreds of thousands of Nepalis back home, and those working in India also losing their jobs and 500,000 Nepali youth entering labour market every year, Nepal’s unemployed population is set to be unprecedented. Nepal, where contribution of remittances to GDP in 2019 was equivalent to 27.3 per cent, lost nearly 50 per cent of remittances in April and May compared to the same period last year according to the Nepal Rashtra Bank, the country’s central bank’s report published in May 2020. This clearly indicates that the socioeconomic effects of the crisis in Nepal are expected to be devastating to its national economy and the overall achievement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Under these circumstances, the road ahead for the returnee migrants like Pabitra and Sarita does not look an easy one as the Government of Nepal faces a big challenge of reintegrating returnee migrant workers in the national labour market. This requires a comprehensive plan for the creation of employment opportunities, matching skills and interests of returnees as well as needs of the national economy. In order to meet the immediate needs of the returnee migrants like Pabitra and Sarita, a total of 97 (89 female and 8 male) returnee migrants have received direct assistance from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) as of 31 July 2020 under an initiative supported by the United Nations Secretary General’s COVID Response Fund. The underlying economic and social vulnerabilities of Nepal are further compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic. The country-wide lockdown, global economic disruptions and resulting impact on global value chains, plus restrictions in global travel and trade are already severely impacting Nepal’s economy and people’s livelihoods. Those most impacted persons include migrants, both internal and returning from abroad; informal sector workers; and workers in the tourism industry. These sectors are large contributors to Nepal’s GDP. The loss of income is felt at individual and household levels, raising concerns about the means to meet essential daily expenditure including food. In order to meet the emergency needs of the people and to help Nepal build back better, the United Nations provided the UN Secretary General COVID Response Fund to Nepal. The fund will also provide immediate livelihood support and reintegrate the most affected community into employment. The aim of the fund is also to alleviate potential social consequences of a desperate economic situation, including suicide and other negative coping methods such as child labour or child marriage. The fund focused on persons who have the least means of managing external shocks also aims to prevent the loss of development gains among the most vulnerable persons in Nepal. The UN COVID-19 Response and Recovery Multi-Partner Trust Fund is jointly executed by ILO, IOM, UNDP and UNESCO in Nepal.

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Press Release

03 December 2020

Oped : The challenges people with disabilities face

Richard Howard The year 2020 has thrown unprecedented challenges at all of us, both in Nepal and globally. The pandemic has also impacted people disproportionally. Persons with disabilities that make up 15 percent of the world population, or one billion, are among the hardest hit by Covid-19. One in every five women is likely to experience disability in her life, while one in every 10 children is living with a disability. Of the one billion population of persons with disabilities, 80 percent live in developing countries. These numbers provide a backdrop for thinking about our response to Covid-19 and how we make a dedicated effort to ensure that people with disabilities are not left behind. We must ensure their inclusion in our response and recovery efforts. Some disabilities are not visible. Chronic pain, mental illness, chronic fatigue are a few types of invisible disabilities that control people’s lives but do not show in obvious ways. These are people who are regularly told that their disabilities are not real, are made up for sympathy or only imagined and could not possibly be a real medical condition since they walk free from canes or crutches, have functioning limbs, and can seemingly move their bodies just like the rest of us. Society needs to be built so that it is accessible to everyone, including those with less visible disabilities. Nepali society, like most societies, should promote greater understanding and increased accessibility for people with disabilities, who are often treated differently or excluded from the opportunities and conversations open to others. They are pressed to navigate a world that is not built for them. Kindness, compassion and consideration are a good start to ensure that we see and support those who may struggle and suffer in normal times and in times of crisis. When this pandemic passes, the world must be a different place, and it is a chance to reimagine a society in which people with disabilities have better lives; where they do not have to fight to be seen and included, and where they are not merely an afterthought. People with disabilities should participate in our response and recovery from Covid-19 at all stages, and they should hold us accountable to deliver on our promises. On this International Day of Persons with Disabilities, I hope that we can all begin to envision a society that everyone can participate in, one that changes how we see and interact with disabilities as equal partners, particularly those with invisible disabilities. It is a chance to build back better and challenge inequalities at every step. A big step in the right direction is to break the silence, speak up and wipe away the biases held against people with disabilities, to banish the stereotypes, and slowly dissipate the stigma facing people with disabilities. These changes start with each of us making a commitment. There are myriad ways in which the world can transform to remove obstacles for people with disabilities to access the opportunities the rest have, from access to economic opportunity and healthy workspaces to accessible infrastructure and health services. Richard Howard Howard is the UN Resident Coordinator ad interim in Nepal and is the Director of ILO Nepal

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Story

12 October 2020

Young Girls in rural Nepal are choosing early marriage to escape poverty and discrimination

The zinc sheet roofs, mud huts and wooden pillars of Namuna Basti shows poverty reigns. Namuna Basti is a labyrinth of lanes with 55 closely packed housing units inhabited by impoverished Badi community- the poorest and most marginalized groups (Dalits) in Nepal who are also considered the “untouchables”. It lies just out of eyesight from the nearest bigger town in the Karnali Province. In the community, young women with children are a common sight. About 90 percent of the women from Namuna Basti are married before the age of 20, which speaks to the alarming prevalence of child marriage here. An Arial view of Namuna Basti. Child marriage in Nepal is driven by a complex web of factors., Key among them is caste-based and gender-based discrimination, especially when combined with poverty. In Nepal’s rural communities, parents often choose marriage for girls because, once married, daughters customarily leave their homes to enter into their husbands’ household and cannot financially support their parents like their sons. It leads families to prioritize education and even basic survival needs, such as food, for boys over girls, which is one of the reasons why child brides and their children are more likely to be malnourished. Due to the existence of a deeply embedded patriarchal norms and unequal power relations, Nepal has a high prevalence of deeply-rooted traditional practices such as caste-based discrimination, chhaupadi and menstrual restrictions, child marriage, dowry, and witchcraft accusation and persecution. These practices often create significant barriers to the realization of human rights, particularly for women and persons from excluded groups. Despite significant advances in legislative and policy frameworks made over the past few years, these practices continue to pervade in Nepal. In 2018, in recognition of these practices being barriers to realizing the UN’s commitments to Agenda 2030 and the principle of Leaving No One Behind, the United Nations Country Team in Nepal with the support of DCO innovation funds carried out a Perception Survey on five of the above-mentioned practices. The survey, conducted in 16 districts within Province 2, 6 and 7 covering 4,000 respondents, was led by the United Nations Resident Coordinators Office in Nepal. Rama (name changed), a 22-year-old girl from Namuna Basti was born into a Badi family. Due to poverty her parents could not afford her education. She started working in India as a full-time maid at the age of 13. She had to spend more than 12 hours a day doing household chores, and she was desperately looking for an escape from her everyday hardship. With the hope to live a better life, seven years ago, she married the person she loved at the age of 15, despite the minimum age requirement for marriage being 20 years old under the Nepali Law. Her husband was 25 Rama’s husband belonged to the so called “upper-caste” Kshetriyas (also called Chhetris). In Nepal, the influence of caste — a social order rooted in Hindu scriptures and based on an identity determined at birth — cannot be disregarded. In the perception of caste hierarchy, Brahmins and Chhetris remain at the top and Dalits, who make up almost 13.6 percent of Nepal’s population of more than 27.33 Million, are at the bottom. Due to this perceived hierarchy, discrimination based on caste remains pervasive. From the Perception Survey carried out by the UN, among the 4,000 respondents from 16 districts, 97% indicated that they have accepted the prevalence of caste-based discrimination in their locality. Following their marriage, Rama returned to Nepal with her husband and began living with her in-laws. Being a Dalit woman, Rama was at high risk of experiencing both caste- and gender-based discrimination at her husband’s house. Fortunately, however, Rama’s husband protected her and facilitated her to be accepted as a member of the family. Rama became pregnant almost immediately after her marriage. Knowing that pregnancy could be risky for Rama at her young age, her husband insisted to abort the baby. But she remained adamant and gave birth to their first child when she was just 16. Within just five years of her marriage, her life took an unexpected turn, when a tragic road accident killed her husband. Following the death of her husband, her in-laws began verbally abusing her and forced her to work endlessly. Rama left her husband’s house along with her children and began living with her mother in Namuna Basti. Rama is now a 22-year-old widow and is a sole bread winner for her family. With poverty, lack of education and discrimination based on her caste that she faces every day, giving a decent life to her children is a constant struggle. In the same Basti, Seema Badi (name changed) lives two houses apart from Rama. Seema, just like Rama, is a child bride who chose to get married on her own. She eloped with her boyfriend, who was two-class senior to her in school, when she just became a teenager. Her mother initially brought Seema back from her boyfriend’s house and asked her to focus on her education and wait until she gained some maturity. To her mother’s dismay, Seema left the house for the second time to be with her boyfriend. And what drove her to do that? “To escape from poverty, discriminatory social norms and a desire to avoid a forced marriage to a stranger” was her answer. “My mother was giving birth every other year. I had to support her either by babysitting my siblings or supporting the household chores. At school, I faced discrimination from my peers and my teachers for being a ‘Badi girl’” lamented Seema. Recalling one of the incidents in school she said, “one day a big commotion took place in my class when I accidently touched my classmate’s tiffin box. Since she belonged to the upper-caste, my teacher thrashed me in front of my peers. That very moment, I lost faith in our education system and I tore my books in front of my teacher and left the class. I never returned to the class again.” Seema, who is 21 and a mother of an 8-year-old girl, shares she is content with her present life. Her husband is working in the gulf country to make the ends meet for the family and pay for their daughter’s education. “Together Forever” says Seema with happiness as she shows the initials of her husband and daughter's name inked on her left hand. She however feels she could have achieved more had she listened to her mother and not eloped for the second time. But the societal pressure was one of the factors that constrained her from staying with her mother. “The rumor about me eloping with my boyfriend has already spread in the community. So, the only choice I had was to go back to the person I love because no one would have accepted me as a wife later,” shared Seema. Seema does not want her daughter to repeat her same mistakes. She wants to invest in her daughter’s education so that her daughter can achieve her full potential. But the growing trend of voluntary “love marriages” among teenage children in marginalized communities, often prompted by the desire to escape poverty and discrimination, scares Seema. Seema’s fear is not unfounded. The Perception Survey showed that 90% of the 4,000 respondents acknowledge that voluntary love marriage (Bhagi Bibaha) among minors is prevalent in their locality, while 19% indicated the continued prevalence of an arranged marriage (Magi Bibaha) among minors. According to UNICEF, 15 million girls are married as children globally each year and Nepal has the third highest rate of child marriage in Asia, after Bangladesh and India. The trend of young girls like Seema and Rama choosing early love marriage to cope with poverty and discrimination not only exposes them to a vicious cycle of inequality and insecurity, but also perpetuates the practice of child marriage, creating an obstacle to global development. A 19-year-old girl from Dailekh district with her two children. Child marriage is a core development and human rights issue which is directly linked with eight of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are Goals 1 (poverty), 2 (food security), 3 (health), 4 (education), 5 (gender equality), 8 (economic growth), 10 (inequality), and 16 (peace). Ending child marriage and investing more into the child’s future is therefore an indispensable responsibility of Nepal to ensure that it fully achieves the SDGs.

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27 August 2021

The hopes of a community on her back

Darchula, Nepal: For the past four years, Birma Devi Kunwar has been weaving her way up and down the hilly pathways in Darchula District in Nepal’s remote far-west, a vaccine box perched firmly on her back. Birma is responsible for periodically collecting vaccines from the vaccine store in the district headquarters of Khalanga and taking them to the Pipalchauri Health Post in Duhun – located in the upper reaches of the district – where she works as a support staff. Until this year, 32-year-old Birma had been carrying a variety of life-saving vaccines meant primarily for the routine immunization of children in the village, something she continued to do through the COVID-19 pandemic. “After COVID-19 vaccination started in the country a few months ago, I’ve been walking the same path but with these new vaccines,” she says. It’s precisely such a batch that Birma is moving this early August morning, namely doses of the single-shot Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines. These are part of the over 1.5 million doses of the vaccine that the US Government donated to Nepal through the COVAX Facility in July 2021. In Darchula, as in other parts of the country, the vaccines are currently being administered through vaccination centres like Pipalchauri to designated priority groups, including persons with disabilities. While it is possible to drive halfway to Duhun in a vehicle, followed by over an hour’s walk across a long footbridge and up a steep slope to the health post – the very route that Birma is taking today – this is not always a viable choice. “The roads here are unreliable for many months of the year, particularly during the monsoon,” Birma says, explaining the obstructions and dangers posed by landslides that often follow heavy rains, rendering the already-narrow, rocky roads unmotorable for weeks at a time. “It’s a risky ride.” This is why Birma prefers to walk the entire stretch most of the time, forgoing vehicle rides entirely, a journey that can take between three to four hours. Although it is certainly the more exerting of the two options, Birma says it’s worth it. “With roads, you never know what’s going to happen,” she says. “At least you can rely on your own feet.” Having carried vaccines for all these years, Birma has become an easily recognizable figure in her community, and more recently, a magnet for questions about the vaccines. “People are eagerly waiting for vaccines, they ask me constantly when they will arrive, when they can get it, when it will be their turn. All the time.” The questions don’t bother her, however. Birma says that knowing she is in charge of ensuring access to vaccines for children and families, who would otherwise be vulnerable to a range of diseases, has always been the most rewarding aspect of her job. And now, with the pandemic, she feels that sense of responsibility even more acutely. “This has been a hard time for everyone,” she says, talking about her adolescent son who hasn’t been able to return to school, and her husband, currently working in India to earn for the family. “We all want this to be over and to return to normal.” “I’m glad to be helping in that in my own way.” UNICEF – together with key health partners – has long been supporting the Government of Nepal in assessing, strengthening and expanding the country’s cold chain capacity at the central, provincial, district and local levels, including through provision of crucial equipment like refrigerators, vaccine cold boxes and carriers, as well as through necessary technical and logistical support. The cold chain is key in ensuring the safe and effective transport and delivery of vaccines throughout the different legs of their journey, to get them into the arms of the people who need them the most.

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14 June 2021

The storm inside

Kathmandu, Nepal: Twenty-one-year-old Sailesh RC has recently set himself a task for the coming weeks: to make sure to write at least one scene every single day. Sailesh – originally from Dailekh District in mid-western Nepal, but currently living in Kathmandu – is a filmmaker, a recent graduate of media studies, and has already been engaged in a number of film projects over the years. He is also among the three young filmmakers who were selected to receive grants as part of a UNICEF-British Council partnership to produce short films on the theme of mental health. That love of film and storytelling was what got him through this last year when COVID-19 brought such enormous changes to everyone’s lives. That, and a newfound interest in cooking, something he has gotten even more practice in now that he’s living by himself. "I struggled to stay motivated at first, but then I decided that I was going to make use of the time I had to practice and produce whatever I could,” he says. But one thing Sailesh still misses more than anything else is the freedom to travel. Prior to the pandemic, he was on the road more often than not; in fact, he hopes to visit all 77 districts in the country and so far, has already gotten 45 out of the way. “Travelling has always fueled my fiction,” he says, talking about the joys of going to a new place, meeting new people and learning about their particular realities. “I want my work to reflect these experiences and stories from different corners of the country. Being confined within the four walls of his home for such an extended period of time has therefore been frustrating, but Sailesh says he is trying is best to fight that feeling. He recognizes, however, that this might be easier said than done for many others. “Adolescence and youth is such an important transitory phase in our lives.. it’s an age of dreaming big and of starting to figure out who we are and what we want to do,” he says. “So, this situation has a lot of us feeling lost.” He offers the example of one of his friends, whom he started to sense – through their conversations – was having a hard time. On his part, Sailesh says he simply listened to his friend. “Sometimes as friends and family, that’s the best thing you can do to support someone,” he says. “You watch out for clues that they are struggling, even if they don’t tell you directly, and you stay in touch, you listen and just be there for them.” “Everyone needs to have people they can open up to and express themselves to without judgement.” With the vaccination campaign having started in the country, Sailesh says there is at least the hope that things might return to normal. For now, he dreams of some day being able to set off on the road again, heading towards new places, new people and new stories to tell.

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14 June 2021

‘We cannot afford to let our guard down now’

Kathmandu, Nepal: Dr. Sanjay Kumar Thakur is among the thousands of healthworkers in Nepal who have been, for well over a year now, on the very frontlines of the battle against COVID-19. Until a recent shift to the Bir Hospital in the Kathmandu, Dr. Sanjay had been the medical superintendent at the Narayani Hospital in Birgunj in southern Nepal, where he had worked with his team to respond to COVID-19 during both the first and second waves of the pandemic. Comparing his experiences and observations across these two waves, Dr. Sanjay says that the severity of cases in the most recent surge of cases posed an enormous challenge. “Last year, people would come to us as soon as they had symptoms, so we were seeing a lot of mild cases,” he says. “This time around, however, with so many opting to isolate at home without any contact with healthworkers, they would only come to us after their condition had worsened considerably.” Dr. Sanjay recalls receiving patients whose oxygen levels had dropped so low that there was already a danger of organ damage, besides complicating treatment. Then, there was the sheer number of patients. Following the surge of the virus in India, which prompted mass movement of people across the border into Nepal throughout April and May, health facilities like Narayani were quickly seeing a steep, alarming rise in traffic. “Within a short time, cases were just climbing up and up,” he says. “We were stretched to the very limit, trying to do the best with the resources we had.” Much like in other health facilities around the country, concern was especially high around the flow of oxygen supplies at the hospital during the second wave. Dr. Sanjay recounts one occasion when the team had been struggling with a batch of ventilators that were out of order. Upon learning of the situation, UNICEF’s health staff – through coordination with the Biomedical Engineering Foundation Nepal – had connected the hospital to a biomedical engineer, who had arrived and swiftly taken care of the repairs. “That was a huge relief,” Dr. Sanjay says. “We were able to bring those into use immediately for COVID-19 patients who might not have otherwise survived.” Fortunately, the family was soon able to reunite and recover together without complication – for which Dr. Sanjay credits his having taken both doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. He hopes more and more people around Nepal can soon have access to the vaccine and the protection it provides, and hopes that appeals that are being made to countries to donate excess doses will bear fruit. However, he warns that as we wait for vaccines to arrive, we need to continue to practice preventive measures. “When cases went down after the first wave, people made the mistake of thinking everything was fine, that it was all over and we didn’t have to be careful anymore,” he says. “But if there is anything we can learn from the devastation that we saw in the second wave, it is that we cannot let our guard down now.”

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08 June 2021

‘We need to assume less and listen more’

“If there’s one thing the pandemic has done, it’s to open up conversations about and really underline the importance of mental health support mechanisms – especially for children.” Clinical psychologist Ram Pukar Sah has been with the Kanti Children’s Hospital in Kathmandu for four years, during which he has worked with his team to help children and adolescents in need of counselling and treatment. And this past year – owing to the uncertainty, restrictions and vast changes that COVID-19 has brought to our lives – he says that there have been some very specific and worrying impacts on children and adolescents' mental health. “Children haven’t gotten to socialize, they are stuck at home, they are afraid …. and many are spending too much time on electronic gadgets,” he says. “All this is affecting their overall development, particularly in younger children below six, whereas in the case of older children, we are seeing a lot of anxiety and stress about their studies and the future.” Recognizing the urgent need for mental health support for children in the context of the COVID-19 crisis, UNICEF initiated the child and adolescent mental health (CAMH) programme in 2020, in collaboration with the Kanti Children’s Hospital/CWIN Nepal. Led by experts in the field of child psychiatry and psychology like Ram Pukar, a variety of interventions have been taken forward – including training for psychosocial counsellors around the country, mental health sessions for teachers, nurses/frontline health workers and caregivers of children, as well as sessions designed for children themselves. In the span of just seven months, the programme was able to reach more than 20,000 parents, teachers and caregivers; more than 1,900 nurses and frontline health workers and more than 21,000 children. One of the most recent of these efforts was targeted at a group of 40 children and adolescents who had tested positive for COVID-19. The group was staying in isolation at the National Ayurveda Research and Training Center (NARTC) in Kirtipur, Kathmandu, where the CAMH team including Ram Pukar went in to provide a number of support sessions. “Having to stay idle for long periods of time is difficult for anyone, but especially for children,” he says, explaining how the team was immediately able to identify anxiety and depression related symptoms in a number of the young patients. “It’s important to catch such symptoms early on,” Ram Pukar says. “This can help to reduce the risk of disorders and help them to cope better.” During the three sessions that were conducted at the facility, besides group discussions and interactions, the children were also taught different relaxation and deep breathing exercises, as well as stretching techniques to help with managing stress. In addition, to further support the facility in keeping the children’s minds and bodies engaged during their stay, UNICEF also provided a number of recreation kits, containing a variety of toys, books, stationery and indoor games, as well as personal hygiene supplies. Rabina Maharjan, staff nurse at NARTC, says that the recreational materials were very well received by the children. “We generally made sure to do an hour of exercise and meditation, and an hour of entertainment with songs and dances, every day,” she says. “And with the sessions and the toys and other items, the children were able to fill their hours even more.” Rabina has a young child herself, whom she hasn’t gotten to spend much time with since starting her shifts at the isolation center. But being around the children and getting them through this difficult time helped her too, she says. “It wasn’t as easy to interact very freely, because we had to wear protective gear around them, but seeing the children’s faces light up when they saw us made me very happy. They reminded me of my own daughter.” According to Rabina, following the mental health sessions, two children who had been wetting their beds – often a sign of deep stress – stopped doing so. And five children were identified as requiring individual counselling, with whom the team will be following up in the days to come. All 40 children have since recovered and been discharged. For Ram Pukar, the mental health impact of the crisis on young people has raised a clear red flag about the need for support services, and compelled people to talk more openly about mental health. It has also, he believes, expanded people’s understanding of how counselling and treatment work. “There is generally this one-size-fits-all approach, where people think you just need to give those who are suffering some advice about staying positive and direct them to change their habits,” he says. “While such exercises can help in managing general stress, for those undergoing deeper problems, this is often not enough.” He relays how he has come across parents who bring their children to him with the expectation that he will fix them, and who pile on pressure on their children to be cheerful, to study more. This is not helping, and there is no “quick fix”, according to Ram Pukar. “Children and young people need to be able to express what they are feeling, to know that these feelings are valid, and to be heard on a case-by-case basis, before we can recommend next steps on helping them,” he says. “We need to assume less and listen more.”

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03 June 2021

Living in uncertainty

Kathmandu, Nepal: A little over a month ago, Shitanshu Dhakal had felt like her worst fears had come true. The 20-year-old medical student from Kathmandu recalls being hit with anxiety upon learning that she and her entire family – father, mother and younger sister – had all tested positive for COVID-19. “It’s something you hope would never happen,” she says. “It was terrifying.” Luckily, the family was able to recover in isolation in their home, without complications or hospitalization. And given that they had all contracted the disease, family members didn’t feel the need to isolate separately from one another – a small silver lining, according to Shitanshu. For Shitanshu, that first-hand experience of a disease that has caused so much loss and devastation across the country, truly drove home not just the direct health impacts of COVID-19, but also offered her further insight on the indirect burdens, especially on mental health. Mental health also happens to be area in which Shitanshu has a particular interest: In 2020, she and a number of other fellow students of medicine at the Patan Academy of Health Sciences had worked on setting up a digital peer support system, designed to create mental health support networks within schools. In fact, Aarogya, as the group called themselves, had been one of the top two teams at the Generation Unlimited Youth Challenge 2020 in Nepal, co-hosted by UNDP and UNICEF. “This uncertainty has gone on for so long, it feels unending. And all the while, young people are missing out on their education, activities, being around friends and feeling productive in general.” Shitanshu reveals how she herself has lately started to feel a considerable dip in motivation compared to this time last year. “Back then, it felt temporary – you told yourself you just had to be patient, and find new ways to bide your time,” she says. “But now, it’s like we’re back to square one, and it’s even more difficult to stay positive.” That struggle, Shitanshu believes, is vastly greater in the case of young people who were already dealing with mental health issues prior to the pandemic, and on whom the protracted loneliness and anxiety brought on by the current crisis must certainly be having an “unimaginable impact”. The constant barrage of unverified news and information, especially on social media, is also detrimental to mental well-being, she says. “It can get too much and it’s not healthy… for a time, I deactivated my accounts just to take a break.” This is something she would recommend to others feeling similarly overwhelmed by the online noise. Of course, it hasn’t all been entirely bleak, according to Shitanshu. The start of the vaccination campaign earlier this year had brought great hope to her and the country – Shitanshu has received both doses of the vaccine herself, and her parents have each gotten the first. This played a major role, she believes, in preventing them from developing severe symptoms even after contracting COVID-19. She hopes that the shortfall in vaccine supply will be resolved quickly, so that “everywhere, everyone can be vaccinated, safe and healthy.” In the meantime, she is determined to continue working with her team to find ways to strengthen access to mental health support for young people, and to bring more attention to the issue in general. “Young people need to be supported, they need to be engaged and they need to be heard.” Nepal already has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, and COVID-19 has further exacerbated the situation, exerting a profound impact on the mental health of young people, who are overwhelmed by months of heightened isolation, psychosocial distress, uncertainty and sometimes combined with experiences of trauma and loss. In this context, UNICEF is supporting the child and adolescent mental health (CAMH) programme, run by the Kanti Children’s Hospital and CWIN Nepal to train psychosocial counsellors, teachers, school nurses, frontline healthworkers and caregivers in providing psychosocial support to children.

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Press Release

21 May 2021

United Nations and Partners in Nepal Launch Emergency Covid-19 Plan and Call for International Solidarity to Bring Life-Saving Aid to Nepal’s Most Vulnerable People and Communities

Key Points As Nepal faces breaking point amidst its worst COVID-19 outbreak, the UN and partners today launched the Nepal Covid-19 Response Plan calling for US$ 83.7 million to mobilize an emergency response over the next three months to assist 750,000 of the most vulnerable people affected by the pandemic. After several months of relatively low daily cases in Nepal, cases began to increase rapidly in mid-April, rising to over 8,000 cases per day since 5 May. Over 44% of COVID-19 tests nationally are coming back positive, suggesting that case numbers are much higher than reported. Despite the surge beginning almost three weeks after India’s, Nepal is experiencing roughly the same number of daily cases per capita as India, but with a health system whose capacity is much more limited. Millions of people in Nepal are struggling not just with the direct health impact of COVID-19, but also with hunger, malnutrition, devastating economic losses, and other health needs that are being overlooked. The Government of Nepal is leading the response, but capacities are stretched to breaking point and international solidarity is urgently needed to assist the most vulnerable people with life-saving response activities in health, food security, education, nutrition, shelter, protection, and water and sanitation. UN Resident Coordinator Ms. Sara Beysolow Nyanti said: “The current outbreak is having a devastating impact not just on health but across all sectors, hitting the poorest and most marginalized people in Nepali society the hardest. The COVID-19 Response Plan that we are launching today calls for swift action and international solidarity that is desperately needed to save lives and prevent unnecessary suffering today, tomorrow, and in the difficult weeks to come. We have no time to lose.” Reliefweb link: https://reliefweb.int/report/nepal/united-nations-and-partners-nepal-launch-emergency-covid-19-plan-and-call-international For further information, please contact: RCO Nepal - Ram Babu Shah, shah2@un.org , +977 9801002004 UNICEF Nepal –Tania Dhakhwa, tdhakhwa@unicef.org +977 9801244524 WHO Nepal –Tsering Dolkar Gurung, gurungt@who.int , +977 9801054040 OCHA Asia Pacific - Pierre Peron, peronp@un.org , +66 614200390

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Press Release

07 March 2021

Nepal among the first countries in Asia to receive COVID-19 vaccines from COVAX Facility

Today, Nepal received its first consignment of COVID-19 vaccine doses shipped through the COVAX Facility, a partnership between CEPI, Gavi, UNICEF and WHO, made possible through generous donor support from governments, international organizations, foundations and the private sector. The delivery of COVAX-procured vaccines to Nepal is part of a historic step towards ensuring equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines globally, in what will be the largest vaccine procurement and supply operation in history. The goal of the COVAX Facility is to supply Nepal with enough doses to vaccinate 20% of the population depending on funding availability. Under the first COVAX allocation, the COVAX Facility will deliver 1.92 million vaccine doses to Nepal by the end of May 2021, in support of the Government of Nepal’s nation-wide vaccination campaign. Today, the first COVAX shipment of 348,000 doses of AstraZeneca ‘Covishield’ vaccines manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII), together with 350,000 syringes and 3500 vaccine safety boxes arrived in Kathmandu before being distributed to provinces and municipalities across the country. COVAX-supported vaccines provide a critical contribution to the Government of Nepal’s National Deployment and Vaccination Plan (NDVP) target to vaccinate roughly 22 million people, among them refugees, migrant returnees and other migrant populations. With the generous contribution of the Government of India, Nepal was able to commence the vaccination campaign and to date, 429,705 people have been vaccinated. The COVAX Facility is generously funded by partner governments, including the Governments of Australia, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, Norway, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union as well as foundations and corporations The arrival of the COVAX supplied vaccines will boost Nepal’s vaccination efforts as it coincides with the launch of the second phase of the vaccination campaign which targets those who are most vulnerable to developing severe illness from COVID-19 including the elderly and people with comorbidities. The second phase will also target teachers, as part of the expanded group of frontline workers. Ongoing public health measures to prevent the transmission of COVID-19 will continue to be critical alongside vaccination. This includes adhering to testing and quarantine measures, mask wearing, hand hygiene, and physical distancing of at least two meters. Representatives of the COVAX technical and funding partners joined the Minister of Health and Population, His Excellency Hridayesh Tripathi, in welcoming the global COVAX contribution to Nepal’s COVID-19 vaccination efforts at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu. Development partners congratulated Nepal for being among the first countries in the world to have launched COVID-19 vaccination efforts in January 2021. They reiterated their solidarity with Nepal, as exemplified by the arrival of the first COVAX vaccine contribution. Nepal’s development partners are committed to working with Nepal through the pandemic recovery period to ensure that no one is left behind. Supporting the vaccination of everyone living in Nepal through COVAX will go a long way to restoring normalcy, preventing the loss of social and economic gains made and paving the way for socio-economic recovery. Please see list of COVAX donor partners and pledges at: https://www.gavi.org/sites/default/files/covid/covax/COVAX-AMC-Donors-Table.pdf Media contacts
UNICEF country office Tania Dhakhwa +977 980 1244524 tdhakhwa@unicef.org WHO country office Mr. Sujan G. Amatya samatya@who.int Communications Officer, UN House, Pulchowk Tel. +977-1-5523200; Extension: 1337 CEPI Press office Telephone: +44 7387 055214 Email: press@cepi.net GAVI Meghana Sharafudeen msharafudeen@gavi.org Iryna Mazur imazur@gavi.org Evan O'Connell econnell@gavi.org Laura Shevlin lshevlin@gavi.org
Notes to Editors List of donor pledges to the Gavi COVAX AMC is available here. Interactive funding tracker for the ACT Accelerator, which includes details of funding for COVAX, can be found here. About COVAX COVAX, the vaccines pillar of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, is co-led by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance Gavi) and the World Health Organization (WHO) – working in partnership with developed and developing country vaccine manufacturers, UNICEF, the World Bank, and others. It is the only global initiative that is working with governments and manufacturers to ensure COVID-19 vaccines are available worldwide to both higher-income and lower-income countries. CEPI is focused on the COVAX vaccine research and development portfolio: investing in R&D across a variety of promising candidates, with the goal to support development of three safe and effective vaccines which can be made available to countries participating in the COVAX Facility. As part of this work, CEPI has secured first right of refusal to potentially over one billion doses for the COVAX Facility to a number of candidates, and made strategic investments in vaccine manufacturing, which includes reserving capacity to manufacture doses of COVAX vaccines at a network of facilities, and securing glass vials to hold 2 billion doses of vaccine. CEPI is also investing in the ‘next generation’ of vaccine candidates, which will give the world additional options to control COVID-19 in the future. Gavi is focused on procurement and delivery for COVAX: coordinating the design, implementation and administration of the COVAX Facility and the Gavi COVAX AMC and working with its Alliance partners UNICEF and WHO, along with governments, on country readiness and delivery. The COVAX Facility is the global pooled procurement mechanism for COVID-19 vaccines through which COVAX will ensure fair and equitable access to vaccines for all 190 participating economies, using an allocation framework formulated by WHO. The COVAX Facility will do this by pooling buying power from participating economies and providing volume guarantees across a range of promising vaccine candidates. The Gavi COVAX AMC is the financing mechanism that will support the participation of 92 low- and middle-income countries in the Facility, enabling access to donor-funded doses of safe and effective vaccines. Gavi is fundraising for the COVAX AMC, and funding UNICEF procurement of vaccines as well as partners’ and governments work on readiness and delivery, including support cold chain equipment, technical assistance, syringes, vehicles, and other aspects of the vastly complex logistical operation for delivery. UNICEF and the Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO) will be acting as procurement coordinators for the COVAX Facility, helping deliver vaccines to COVAX AMC participants and others. WHO has multiple roles within COVAX: It provides normative guidance on vaccine policy, regulation, safety, R&D, allocation, and country readiness and delivery. Its Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunization develops evidence-based immunization policy recommendations. Its Emergency Use Listing (EUL)/prequalification programmes ensure harmonized review and authorization across member states. It provides global coordination and member state support on vaccine safety monitoring. It developed the target product profiles for COVID-19 vaccines and provides R&D technical coordination. WHO leads, along with UNICEF, the support to countries as they prepare to receive and administer vaccines. The Country Readiness and Delivery (CRD) workstream includes Gavi and numerous other partners working at the global, regional, and country-level to provide tools, guidance, monitoring, and on the ground technical assistance for the planning and roll-out of the vaccines. Along with COVAX partners, WHO is also developing a no-fault compensation scheme as part of the time-limited indemnification and liability commitments. UNICEF is leveraging its experience as the largest single vaccine buyer in the world and working with manufacturers and partners on the procurement of COVID-19 vaccine doses, as well as freight, logistics and storage. UNICEF already procures more than 2 billion doses of vaccines annually for routine immunization and outbreak response on behalf of nearly 100 countries. In collaboration with the PAHO Revolving Fund, UNICEF is leading efforts to procure and supply doses of COVID-19 vaccines for COVAX. In addition, UNICEF, Gavi and WHO are working with governments around the clock to ensure that countries are ready to receive the vaccines, with appropriate cold chain equipment in place and health workers trained to dispense them. UNICEF is also playing a lead role in efforts to foster trust in vaccines, delivering vaccine confidence communications and tracking and addressing misinformation around the world. About CEPI CEPI is an innovative partnership between public, private, philanthropic, and civil organisations, launched at Davos in 2017, to develop vaccines to stop future epidemics. CEPI has moved with great urgency and in coordination with WHO in response to the emergence of COVID-19. CEPI has initiated 11 partnerships to develop vaccines against the novel coronavirus. The programmes are leveraging rapid response platforms already supported by CEPI as well as new partnerships. Before the emergence of COVID-19, CEPI’s priority diseases included Ebola virus, Lassa virus, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus, Nipah virus, Rift Valley Fever and Chikungunya virus. CEPI also invested in platform technologies that can be used for rapid vaccine and immunoprophylactic development against unknown pathogens (Disease X). About Gavi Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance is a public-private partnership that helps vaccinate half the world’s children against some of the world’s deadliest diseases. Since its inception in 2000, Gavi has helped to immunise a whole generation – over 822 million children – and prevented more than 14 million deaths, helping to halve child mortality in 73 developing countries. Gavi also plays a key role in improving global health security by supporting health systems as well as funding global stockpiles for Ebola, cholera, meningitis and yellow fever vaccines. After two decades of progress, Gavi is now focused on protecting the next generation and reaching the unvaccinated children still being left behind, employing innovative finance and the latest technology – from drones to biometrics – to save millions more lives, prevent outbreaks before they can spread and help countries on the road to self-sufficiency. Learn more at www.gavi.org and connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.

The Vaccine Alliance brings together developing country and donor governments, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank, the vaccine industry, technical agencies, civil society, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other private sector partners. View the full list of donor governments and other leading organizations that fund Gavi’s work here. About WHO The World Health Organization provides global leadership in public health within the United Nations system. Founded in 1948, WHO works with 194 Member States, across six regions and from more than 150 offices, to promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable. Our goal for 2019-2023 is to ensure that a billion more people have universal health coverage, to protect a billion more people from health emergencies, and provide a further billion people with better health and wellbeing.

For updates on COVID-19 and public health advice to protect yourself from coronavirus, visit www.who.int and follow WHO on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Pinterest, Snapchat, YouTube About UNICEF UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, to build a better world for everyone. For more information about UNICEF and its work for children, visit www.unicef.org. For more information about COVID-19, visit www.unicef.org/coronavirus . Find out more about UNICEF’s work on the COVID-19 vaccines here, or about UNICEF’s work on immunization here. Follow UNICEF on Twitter and Facebook. About the ACT-Accelerator The Access to COVID-19 Tools ACT-Accelerator, is a new, ground-breaking global collaboration to accelerate the development, production, and equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines. It was set up in response to a call from G20 leaders in March and launched by the WHO, European Commission, France and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in April 2020. The ACT-Accelerator is not a decision-making body or a new organisation, but works to speed up collaborative efforts among existing organisations to end the pandemic. It is a framework for collaboration that has been designed to bring key players around the table with the goal of ending the pandemic as quickly as possible through the accelerated development, equitable allocation, and scaled up delivery of tests, treatments and vaccines, thereby protecting health systems and restoring societies and economies in the near term. It draws on the experience of leading global health organisations which are tackling the world’s toughest health challenges, and who, by working together, are able to unlock new and more ambitious results against COVID-19. Its members share a commitment to ensure all people have access to all the tools needed to defeat COVID-19 and to work with unprecedented levels of partnership to achieve it. The ACT-Accelerator has four areas of work: diagnostics, therapeutics, vaccines and the health system connector. Cross-cutting all of these is the workstream on Access & Allocation.

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Press Release

27 January 2021

Holocaust Education and Remembrance in Nepal

The outreach program began with a memorial ceremony hosted by the United Nations Resident Coordinator Ms. Sara Beysolow Nyanti, at the UN House. The ceremony - organized following COVID-19 safety protocols - was attended by their excellencies the Ambassadors of Germany and Israel and the Head of the EU in Nepal. Speaking at the memorial ceremony, the United Nations Resident Coordinator, Ms. Sara Beysolow Nyanti said “remembering accurately and teaching about the Holocaust is vital in countering hatred. This has never been more important than today, a time when antisemitism, bigotry and racism are rising with devastating and violent consequences for people and communities.” “Through our week-long virtual outreach program, I call on all generations especially youth to use your voice to stand up for human rights, challenge discrimination and antisemitism by remembering the need to foster tolerance, solidarity and empathy.” Ms Nyanti added. This year’s International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust is being celebrated under the theme “Facing the Aftermath: Recovery and Reconstitution after the Holocaust”. It focuses on the measures taken by people in the aftermath of the Holocaust to begin the process of recovery and reconstitution of individuals, community, and systems of justice. The theme encourages a discussion of how measures taken in the past could contribute in how we rebuild societies today. Resonating with the global theme, the outreach program will highlight the significance of standing up for justice to stop the rise of antisemitism and racism, including in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, during which we have seen a rise in hate speech and stigmatization against the COVID-19 patients and their family members. It will emphasize our collective need to stand up against injustice and say “never again”. After reciting the Yizkor prayer in honor of all those who suffered during the Shoah, the Ambassador for Israel, Hanan Goder said, "Today we remember the victims of the Holocaust. Six million Jews were murdered by Hitler and his collaborators because of ideology that could not respect the other and could not appreciate tolerance."

He also said, "The message for us today is that we all must denounce all forms of Racism and Antisemitism and most important: we must remember! Remember the victims and all those that courageously stood against the evil of the Nazi ideology." During the memorial ceremony, six candles representing the six million victims of the Holocaust were lit followed by an observance of one-minute of silence. On the occasion, German Ambassador to Nepal Roland Schäfer said, “As a German, I am still haunted by the faces of my missing Jewish brothers and sisters. Those who are not there, who could not finish their lives, have children and continue, are as important to us as those who survived. No family, no country, no society can live while forgetting the ones who are missing. That’s why this week is so important, also in Nepal.” EU Ambassador to Nepal Nona Deprez said, “Today millions in Nepal and all around the world remember those millions who lost their lives in the most horrible event of history. Ensuring this genocide is not forgotten, and educating new generations on the responsibilities of citizenship, care and engagement, are crucial for preventing such atrocity from happening again in the future. With the support of Higher Institutions and Secondary Schools' Association Nepal (HISSAN) and V4Action Volunteers – the online volunteering network of youth established by the UN in Nepal, the virtual outreach program on Holocaust has set a target to reach out to more than 35 hundred youth from 7 provinces Nepal within a week’s time. Organizations involved in this initiative
Embassy of Germany, the Embassy of Israel, the Delegation of the European Union to Nepal (EU) and Higher Institutions and Secondary Schools' Association Nepal (HISSAN)

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Press Release

26 January 2021

Sara Beysolow Nyanti is the new United Nations Resident Coordinator in Nepal

"I am truly delighted to start my tenure as the UN Resident Coordinator in Nepal. This is a crucial time for the UN and the government as it relates to containing the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuring a coordinated response that is not only medical but addresses the socio-economic challenges as well. I am committed to our joined-up efforts to provide immediate and effective humanitarian support to Nepal in relation to not only the COVID 19 response, but to an overall effective emergency preparedness and response system. On behalf of the UN in Nepal, I express my commitment to support the government of Nepal and the stakeholders in pushing the envelope to build back not only better, but greener, and differently. Nepal’s aspiration of graduation from being a least developed country is one that the UN shares, and our support in this area will remain a priority. With the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the heart of everything we do, I would like to reiterate the UN in Nepal’s focus on internalizing the SDGs for stronger engagement with provincial and local governments in order to achieve the global agenda with a focus on gender equality," said the UN Resident Coordinator Nyanti. UNRC’s Biography: Ms. Sara Beysolow Nyanti is the UN Resident Coordinator in Nepal. Ms. Nyanti brings more than 20 years of experience in development and humanitarian work to the position, which she has acquired from assignments around the world with the United Nations and externally. Within the Organization, she most recently served as Representative of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Yemen, where she set up programmes that provided cash assistance to nine million people, after occupying a similar position in the Gambia. She also held leadership positions across the United Nations in Jordan, Namibia, Nepal and Nigeria, working in multiple sectors and agencies on key issues such as Ebola response coordination. Prior to joining the United Nations, Ms. Nyanti worked as her country’s Director of the National AIDS Control Program in the health ministry. She authored the first Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria funding for the Liberia’s national AIDS response and led the development and subsequent legislation of the national AIDS policy, guidelines and law. She holds a master’s degree in public administration and is a globally accredited Partnership Broker. *** About the UN Resident Coordinator The UN Resident Coordinator (RC) is the highest-ranking representative of the UN development system at the country level. RCs lead UN Country Teams and coordinate UN support to countries in implementing the 2030 Agenda. The Resident Coordinator is the designated representative of the UN Secretary-General and is the head of the United Nations system’s operational activities in the country.

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Press Release

27 November 2020

UN Nepal Joint Statement on Bardibas Incident

We urge the relevant authorities to urgently follow due process and ensure that the perpetrator is held accountable. This incident happened on the eve of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence campaign and has highlighted the critical need to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls. The campaign calls on governments, civil society and individuals to speak out and act to bring about the changes within our society and culture that perpetuates gender-based violence, at times with impunity. When incidents do occur, due process should be followed and perpetrators held accountable for their actions. The UN in Nepal pledges its full support to prioritise and adopt actions to address the needs of victims and survivors of violence and ensure that our collective response and recovery efforts uphold their rights, including their right to live a life free from violence. Every survivor of GBV must be able to receive the full range of care that she or they need and deserve, including urgent medical attention and access to follow-up health services, psychosocial care, and protection and justice services. These services must be informed by continuous data collection to improve delivery and safety standards. While holding perpetrators to account is critical at this stage, the UN would like to stress the fact that gender-based violence can be prevented. Doing justice to this little girl requires action to protect all women and girls in Nepal from violence. We urge demonstrators and security forces to raise their voice responsibly and to show restraint to avoid a further escalation of the situation.

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