Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform (GFN-SSR)

On track for improved security? A survey tracking changing perceptions of public safety, security and justice provision in Nepal

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Questions about peace and security remain critical both to national decision-makers and to the lives of ordinary people in Nepal. This report, by Interdisciplinary Analysts and Saferworld, analyses changing public attitudes to community safety and human security in the country. It is the second in a series of surveys that will track public perceptions of security over time. It concludes that most Nepalis still feel safer than before the protests in 2006 that led to the end of the country’s long-running civil conflict. Nepalis see security both in terms of crime and violence and also in terms of socio-economic development.

In April 2006, street protests known as the Jana Andolan II shifted the political atmosphere in Nepal. This paved the way for the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the Government of Nepal and the Maoists in November 2006, thus ending a decade of conflict. Successful elections to a Constituent Assembly were held on 10 April 2008.

The survey identified the following main conclusions:

• Most Nepalis say that they feel safer than before Jana Andolan II. However, the optimism that was noticeable in 2007 appears to be decreasing.
• Nepalis think of security not only in terms of crime and violence, but also in terms of socio-economic development, with particular importance attached to poverty, unemployment, and the rise in prices of essential goods.
• Evidence suggests that the incidence of crime may not be as high as is sometimes perceived. However, even if few people have themselves been victims, the fear of crime and insecurity is still widespread.
• There is an increasing willingness to go to official bodies when threatened with violence. Informal methods of resolving such difficulties, such as going to neighbours, relatives or friends, have declined in popularity.
• Of those that felt discrimination existed in the police and the courts, most thought that people that are poor, lack access to political parties or are uneducated suffered most.
• Small Arms and Light Weapons proliferation is not very pronounced, apart from in specific areas such as the Terai. Management of the border with India is weak, which facilitates the trafficking of human beings, drugs, and weapons.

The report refrains from giving a comprehensive set of recommendations for SSR, but suggests that the following steps would help to improve security:

• The government should ensure that extending the presence and responsiveness of state security and justice provision in communities is central to justice and security sector reforms.
• Development interventions should be targeted to the socio-economic causes of insecurity and accompanied by more comprehensive security and justice provision.
• There should be a firm commitment from all political parties to root out all discriminatory practices, not to politicise security and justice institutions, and to ensure that all sectors of society are adequately protected.
• Security agencies, particularly the police, need to improve their capacity to anticipate and prevent the use of arms and violence at political strikes and traffic blockades – commonly known as Bandhsand chakkajams – so as to minimise the dangers such protests pose to the general public.
• A peaceful and timely resolution needs to be found to the disagreements over how to integrate the PLA and the Nepal Army that satisfies all political parties.

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