Democracy For Nepal

Friday, May 08, 2015

BibekSheel Nepali: Earthquake Response Task Force

A few suggestions (first, great work, as in great work on the ground, but also great work putting together this video --- almost equally important):

Put out shorter clips (3-5 minutes) almost daily, mostly to do with work on the ground. Your public Facebook page is your hub.
Always conclude by asking for donations. Make it easy for people to donate.
Target the global Nepali diaspora, but don't ignore the locals. Set up a missed call mechanism perhaps?
"Sell" the numbers. Moving around information is almost as important as moving around food, water tablets and basic medicine. Show the world you have a great bang for the buck. Impact per dollar, if you will.
Don't restrict yourself to Nepali donors. Anyone anywhere on the planet can donate. In fact, consider spending 1% of your proceeds on Facebook ads. Or get donors to sponsor that.
The short term needs are food, water purifying tablets, and basic medicine, and tents/tarpaulins. The immediate long term needs are house reconstruction. Build the big picture by gathering information from every possible source. How many are impacted? How many have need? How are the needs being met? What is the unmet need? Show that you are doing good work, but it is a drop in the ocean. That you provide a great bang for the buck (low overhead), but you face a resource crunch.
Getting that information out there, those concrete numbers, would be a big help. Ordinary Americans (and Indians and British and Japanese and others) will donate directly to you if you communicate well. Facebook is that platform. 100% real time online transparency is the weapon to use.
This video is great, but also upload another one with English subtitles.
If you can show the world that what you are doing is 20 times cheaper than the foreign governments and agencies trying to provide end to end solutions, that just might end up being your top contribution. That might not get you the foreign government funds, but ordinary Americans (and Indians and British and Japanese and others) will step in.
Good work is not enough, it also has to scale. Looks like you went from 50 to 500 to 1100 volunteers. Go to 5,000 to 50,000. It has to be that fundraising is the only constraint. And that fundraising has to be on a war footing, and global. Nepalis who participated in your virtual #withNepal event now need to help you with this. You rope them in by creating your daily 3-5 minute video which always end with a strong pitch for people to donate.
Also play a watchdog role. People in the affected areas should learn to call you to say things like "I am from such and such place, this is the scale of devastation, and we have not received any help yet" or "Help came but went to all the wrong people, the true needy did not get it." Those audio recordings could be part of the video clips. Raw audio.
Work closely with the group (I believe KLL) that is doing the crowd sourced map. That is the closest thing to 100% online transparency we have right now.
Always try to communicate the big picture. As in, there is a need for 500,000 tents, we have sent out 1500, other organizations and agencies have sent out 200,000 as of ___________ and we believe there is an unmet need of _________ tents.
The hotline is an awesome idea.
Create one task force just for a robust online discussion on what might be the best options for reconstruction of houses. What is everyone else saying? What are some of the best ideas in the local context? What is the need on the ground? What kind of help can be expected? What might be some of the local self help ideas? What mistakes are to be avoided?
You say resurgence. What do you mean?
Now might not be the best time. But keep collecting all possible data/information that can be seen as evidence of incompetence and corruption on the part of those in power, and at the right time, maybe in a few weeks, when one round of help has already reached most of those in need, start a political campaign where you say we can do better. And there the membership through missed call needs to go national. Because those who messed up can not be allowed to stay at the help for five years. And this Relief/Reconstruction/Resurgence will be at least a five year marathon. Give people an alternative. A sound political alternative. In short, plot a political offensive.
Also act a watchdog to foreign governments and agencies. Challenge some of their mental frameworks. Challenge them on the maximum bang for the buck. What is their ROI (Return On Investment)? Is it poor? Share that with their taxpayers. Give them options to work through organizations like yours.
Which are the Top 10 organizations? With the maximum impact, efficiency, transparency?
Do not ignore Kathmandu valley. The valley also has need. It also has resources. And it might be your "Delhi!" The political stepping stone.
Start an Adopt A Family program. You connect a sponsoring person or family globally to a family in need in Nepal. The help is for house reconstruction and basic livelihood needs.
Reach out to Elon Musk. Ask him to pitch in. If he does, the media publicity that will generate will bring in much more from many people. Ask Musk to build a Mangal Tower in Kathmandu in place of Dharahara. Free WiFi across the Valley. FYI: Musk has a soft spot for the Khan Academy. You should be able to tug him.
The goal of the daily 3-5 minute video is fundraising. That's it. Let there be no doubt.
Go directly to platforms like Indiegogo for the same.
The last 10 seconds in the video are not well done. If someone wants to donate, all the information should be right there. Your PayPal account ID, your Western Union ID, bank account. No?
Summary: Great work, keep it up, scale like crazy.

Thursday, May 07, 2015

A Marshall Plan Is Possible Through 100% Online Transparency

Logo used on aid delivered to European countries during the Marshall Plan. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Marshall Plan was a US government effort. Done right, 100% online transparency allows you to bypass that US government and go straight to the American people. And by American, I also mean British, Indian, Japanese, whoever.

Needed: A Marshall Plan

governance in Nepal was a disaster zone even before the earthquake. ..... Slow delivery of services, lack of coordination, mismanagement, ad hoc decisions and corruption have been the hallmarks of our soft state. Despite the restoration of democracy and regular elections, accountability has somehow always fallen between the cracks. Leaders who traditionally thrived on patronage have felt no need for performance-based legitimacy. ...... How could we expect the Nepali state to become the epitome of efficient management and speedy delivery overnight, just because there was an earthquake? ....... It would have streamlined procedures to receive maximum assistance instead of creating hurdles, it would have expedited delivery of urgent medical and food supplies to remote areas instead of letting it pile up at the airport, it would have encouraged donations to pour in instead of creating obstacles and obfuscation. ...... what we saw were politicians and bureaucrats showing the same inertia and lethargy as they have during ‘normal’ times. They pushed paper, waited for rubber stamps and ‘clearance from higher-up authorities’ as if it was just another humdrum day in our banana republic. All right, we’ll say it:

the bureaucratic delays in the initial days after the quake cost lives. The earthquake killed people, red tape killed many of the survivors.
........ The Prime Minister toured Sindhupalchok by air 10 days after the earthquake, Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal has been holed up in a secluded villa in Man Bhavan for the past week, and only briefly gate-crashed a relief distribution event organised by the Guru Dwara. The President, it must be said, shunned media attention and made low-key personal visits to ruins of Kathmandu’s historic heart. ..... And when the politicians and the government did act decisively, it was to spread even more hopelessness and confusion. Just like the famously absurd sound bite by a palace official after the royal massacre in 2001 about it having been caused by the “accidental discharge of an automatic weapon” this time too, officials were busy shooting themselves in the foot every time they opened their mouths. .......... The Central Bank issued a dreadful statement that all earthquake aid had to be channeled through the Prime Minister’s Disaster Relief Fund (‘otherwise they will be seized’) that immediately halted most emergency cash donations from abroad. The PMO tried to clarify it was only for NGOs set up after 25 April for earthquake relief, but its interpretation sowed even more confusion. Then some wiseguy in government said we don’t need any more aid. Not to be outdone, another smartass told foreign rescue workers “we don’t need you anymore we can handle it ourselves”. The government is the subject of ridicule across the world, it is squandering the goodwill that Nepal and Nepalis command internationally – testament to which is the tremendous and prompt delivery of relief flights.......... The Army and Armed Police together have 120,000 personnel deployed in the 12 districts, and by all accounts have gone beyond the call of duty, despite their own family tragedies, in search, rescue and ferrying supplies. Civil society, individuals, overseas Nepalis and the private sector have stepped in to fill the gaps. ......... In the short-term there is still the need to get emergency food, medicine and shelter to the areas where they are most needed. In the medium term, we will have to turn our attention to semi-permanent housing as well help with seeds for the planting season as the rainy season approaches. This is of vital importance so subsistence farmers who have lost their granaries have something to eat in the coming year and will not have to depend on outside food aid. Then there is the colossal need for reconstruction of the 300,000 homes and 15,000 schools that have been destroyed. ........ This needs a Marshall Plan type movement with seamless coordination between the government, local bodies, the international community, the UN and the multilateral agencies. By now we have plenty of lessons learnt from Haiti to Haiyan about how to best manage the rehabilitation of vast populations. No two countries are alike, but there are red flags about where things went dreadfully wrong elsewhere, and why things worked brilliantly in places. ....... more than anything else, we in Nepal need to turn this tectonic shift into a paradigm shift in the way we govern ourselves, how we plan, move towards a renewable energy economy, be more self-sufficient, enforce urban planning, zoning and safe housing regulations, and decentralise decision-making. ....... Nepal has turned into a no-man’s land because of overseas out migration. Village after village devastated by the earthquake have only women, children and the elderly.