Detailed Activities

• While working with civil society and political leaders for building social harmony and inter and intra party communication and cooperation, ICPD has performed in:
  1. Holding a series of informal personal level interactions and participating in and organizing formal interactions through seminars, radio and T.V. interviews and discussions with academics, and civil society and political leaders at the grass-roots, national and international levels on the ways of ending violence in Nepals conflict transformation and peacebuilding. Such activities included participating in various civil society forums and offering talk programs at various universities and international development organizations of Nepal (TU, PU, KU, bilateral and multilateral agencies), Europe (MOFA/CM Finland, University of Uppsala Sweden, GTZ Germany, Helvetas + SDC + Swisspeace Switzerland), and North America (George Mason University and Harvard University, UN and World Bank in USA, and Simon Frazer University, Victoria University, University of British Columbia, University of Caribou, Montreal University, St. Paul University, CECI, UNITERRA, CIDA).
  2. Participating in Janandolan II (2062-3) especially on observation of human rights aspects.
  3. Organizing an unpaid work of some 8,000 volunteers from 54 national NGOs and 47 international observers under the common banner of Constituent Assembly Election Observation Joint Forum (CAEOF) for the CA Election of 2008.
  4. Organizing and facilitating the ongoing work of the Backchannel Group (BCG) of senior political leaders of all parties and their factions in Integration and Rehabilitation of Maoist Armed Combatants (IRMAC) and contentious issues as State Restructuring in Constitution Writing processes formed out of the participants of a series of training courses in Political Negotiation and State Building Program jointly organized by ICPD and Karuna Center for Peacebuilding (KCP) in collaboration with the faculties of Harvard University, Tufts University and financial assistance from US Department of State during June 2010 and April 2011.

• In developing human resources in conflict transformation and peacebuilding ICPD has carried out:
  1. Developing a systematic tool as a peace filter called Participatory Peace-Conflict Assessment (PPCA) to make development programs conflict sensitive by working jointly with the staff and partners of Canadian Center for International Studies and Cooperation (CECI) and training them to implement at the grassroots level while working in the midst of the Maoist armed insurrection in the hills of Mid-Western and Far-Western Nepal during 2004-2006. During the same period training them also on Community Mediation and Interest Based Negotiation.
  2. Ongoing standard or tailor made training course on PPCA for the civil society and political leaders, and personnel of some 50 government, national and international non-government organizations, bilateral and multilateral development institutions including MOPR, UNFPA, UNICEF, ADB, IFAD, LWF, AWO International, CARE Nepal, MS Nepal, Plan Nepal
  3. Ongoing standard or tailor made training course on Development Sector Security Management  
  4. A series of joint training with KCP on Leadership on Sustainable Peacebuilding for the CA Women Members, and civil society, trade union, student and youth leaders and development workers of government and non-government organizations.     

• In enhancing local capacity for employment and self-employment as economic peacebuilding at the grass-roots level, ICPD members established two sister organizations: Lamjung Skill Development Foundation (LSDF) and Enterprise Development Company (EDC).
  EDC is a private organization and as promoter of LSDF has donated land for the construction of buildings for LSDF. EDC has a running workshop on carpentry which acquires orders from the market and pays wages to students of LSDF for the student-work in the campus. The government and private enterprises in Lamjung are placing orders for their furniture needs. With the same motive it plans to open similar enterprises in civil construction, electrical and mechanical works, agriculture and tourism.  The Electrical and Mechanical workshop buildings are being constructed by EDC. EDC jointly with LSDF has also carried out three months long short-term National Skill Test Board (NSTB) Level-1 training courses in various fields for Employment Fund managed by Helvetas in five districts of Nepal. EDC is also promoting home stay programs in Magar Gaon near the LSDF campus and Ghale Gaon, and organic tea cultivation at the latter.
  
  It has been realized that unemployed out-of-school youth are at the core of Nepals decade long armed-conflict acting as both of its cause and effect. As a part of economic peacebuilding, LSDF was established in 2007 as a non-profit and non-governmental organization focused in employment oriented vocational and technical training. It has already produced two batches of graduates of two years of long term training qualifying for NSTB Level-2 Carpentry and Interior Design, and Civil Construction. The fourth batches in each of them have already been admitted. From September 2011 LSDF has also opened two years courses in Electrical and Mechanical trades. For detail information, please refer to www.lsdfnepal.org  All LSDF graduates are employed or self-employed and demanded by the market to such an extent that EDC has difficulty to retain some of them for its own work. LSDF plans to upgrade its organic agriculture and home-stay community support programs to full-fledged training courses qualifying for NSTB Level-1 & 2. LSDF has also provided short term training for Nyadi Hydropower Project and Khudi Hydropower Project through Lamjung Electricity Development Company (LEDCO) and Himtal Hydropower Project of GMR.  

• In supporting development interventions and institutions for system approach to program management, ICPD and/or ICPD professionals have provided training, facilitating and consulting services nationally and internationally to several governmental, non-governmental, academic and bilateral and multilateral international development agencies
  Examples of such agencies are: WECS, MOWR, MOE, CTEVT, Poverty Alleviation Fund, TU, KU, PU, UNSSC, UNDP, UNFPA, UNAIDS, UNICEF, FAO, ILO, IFAD, ADB, USDOS via KCP, DFID, USAID, CIDA, SDC, GTZ, HELVETAS, DANIDA, JICA, Norwegian and Danish Embassies, SC-UK + Norway, CECI, MS Nepal, Plan Nepal, CARE Nepal, AWO International, LWF, TAF. Some of the works included such areas as: training of peace leaders at local, national and various international levels, designing and training in application of peace filters for making conflict sensitive of development projects, Early Warning (of Conflict) and Preventive Measures (EWPM); developing conflict sensitivity and peacebuilding strategy, transformational leadership, formulation of Nepals Tenth Plan, policy framework for Technical Education and Vocational Training (TEVT); poverty alleviation in terms of system development, M & E and coordination; training and facilitation on application of MfDR/RBM in planning programs of GON ministries and departments; assisting GON-MOPR in the implementation of UNSCR 1325 and 1820 on women in peace and conflict, etc.