Participation of People With Disabilities in the Decision-Making Process in Nepal

Despite the significant social and political changes over the last five decades in Nepal, persons with disabilities (PwDs) still face challenges in their everyday lives. Lack of meaningful participation of PwDs in leadership and decision-making processes, social stigma, discrimination, and inaccessible physical facilities have excluded PwDs from freely exercising fundamental rights such as voting. Mass media and civil society occasionally raise issues and problems faced by PwDs. Equally, the dearth of data regarding disability has created further challenges to policymakers and planners to understand the diversity of PwD issues at large. Based on a qualitative study, this chapter aims to explore the participation of PwDs particularly in the different phases of policy formulation (such as consultation and participation) at the municipal level and calls for crucial actions for ensuring meaningful participation of PwDs in democratic processes in Nepal in the current federal context.

Political Representation of Gender in Nepal

This paper is based on qualitative methods and discusses women's struggle for equal political participation, currently successful in the political representation of gender in Nepal. The aim of this paper is to examine the establishing equal representation in all sectors of elected government and to find out the inclusive participation of male and female in Nepalese, politics and parliament in together. It is based on completely secondary sources of data through the published in different governmental (election commission, 2074) and non-governmental organization. Nepal has been undergoing tremendous socio-political transformations over the past three decades, unitary to federal and monarchical government to the current republican political system; Nepali women have established themselves as key actors of socio-political changes. Nepali women began their struggle during the Rana Regime and advanced since the 1950s, by engaging both in popular peaceful political movements to armed insurgency and parliamentary competition with their male political counterparts. As a result, latest constitution of Nepal ensured 33% of seats are guaranteed to the parliaments and all other government positions as well as provision of male-female alternates eat provisions. As a result, from the national and local elections of 2017-18, women have come to occupy 41.8 percent political positions across the country. One of the key factors to ensure higher and meaningful participation of women in politics was these favorable electoral provisions. Women have demonstrated success in achieving higher participation in political positions. However, what has been achieved so far is not enough and continued rigorous action among all actors is essential.

Indigenous parents and child welfare: Mistrust, epistemic injustice, and training

The settler state's taking of Indigenous children into care disrupts their communities and continues destructive, assimilationist policies. This article presents the perceptions of lawyers, social workers and judges of how Indigenous parents experience child welfare in Quebec. Our participants characterized those experiences negatively. Barriers of language and culture as well as mistrust impede meaningful participation. Parents experience epistemic injustice, wronged in their capacity as knowers. Mistrust also hampers efforts to include Indigenous workers in the system. Emphasizing state workers’ ignorance of Indigenous family practices and the harms of settler colonialism, participants called for greater training. But critical literature on professional education signals the limits of such training to change institutions. Our findings reinforce the jurisdictional calls away from improving the system towards empowering Indigenous peoples to run services of child welfare. The patterns detected and theoretical resources used are relevant to researchers of other institutions that interact with vulnerable populations.

Deliberative Democracy in Multicultural Societies: The Challenges of Effectiveness, Legitimacy, and Equality

Multicultural societies are marked by the coexistence of ethnic, sexual, religious, racial, and cultural minorities and mainstream groups. This coexistence can either be tense or collaborative. How to bridge the gap between the political demands of majority and minority groups? What are the obstacles to meaningful participation? What are the main challenges faced by such societies? And finally, how do we encourage large-scale debates around issues of minorities? In order to provide answers to these questions, this review examines Intercultural Deliberation and the Politics of Minority Rights by R. E. Lowe-Walker (2018), Deliberative Democracy Now: LGBT Equality and the Emergence of Large-Scale Deliberative Systems by Edwina Barvosa (2018), and Deliberative Democracy, Political Legitimacy, and Self-determination in Multicultural Societies by Jorge M. Valadez (2018).

Practicing Democracy from Childhood

Democracy manifests itself in a range of ways and is an imperfect, dynamic struggle for collective decision-making. This article discusses the multifaceted processes of deliberative democratic praxis found in traditional Māori society. Central to decision-making in te ao Māori, hui provide formal and informal structures for deliberative democracy, precedent setting, learning, and transformation through consensus making, inclusive debate, and discussion across all levels of society. Rather than coercion and voting, rangatira relied on a complex mix of customary values and accomplished oratory skills to explore issues in family and community meetings and in public assemblies. Decisions made through inclusive deliberative processes practiced in hui established evident reasoning and responsibility for all community members to uphold the reached consensus. This article claims that practicing deliberative democracy as a fundamental way of life, learned through ongoing active and meaningful participation throughout childhood, improves the integrity of democratic decision-making.

Women’s Participation in Village Developent Planning: Case of Indonesia

The introduction of participatory processes concerning village development planning by Law 6/2014 on Village open up the opportunity for village communities to shape village development priorities. It is expected that village community involvement over village planning will make village government more accoutable downwardly and village development be responsive to villagers problems and needs. Using literature review, the present paper inspects closely a body of literature to ensure that women and other historically marginalized groups have chance to participate meaningfully in these processes. The reviewed literature suggest a divergence between what scholars believe about advantages of participatory processes and limited impact of such. Similarly, within this nascent stage of village law implementation participatory spaces in determining village development priorities are still dominated by village elites and men, and village development is heavily focus on infrastructure development. However, the presence and empowered women’s organizations or groups which exists in villages might influential to drivw village development priorities that are responsive for women. What we learned from these body of literature is that meaningful participation by women and other historically disadvantaged groups can only be achieved through continious intervention and facilitation either by dedicated and reform-minded public officials and other critical actors. Furthermore women should involve in participatory village development planning as a collective, rather than as individuals.

Women’s Participation in the Energy Transition, A Human Rights Approach to Women’s Participation in the Energy Transition

This new publication, Women’s Participation in the Energy Transition, analyses the status of women’s representation and engagement in the global push to transform our energy systems in the face of the climate emergency, while developing a human rights approach to ensure women’s meaningful participation in this process. This new briefing paper provides an overview of the current trends of women’s participation in the rapidly evolving renewable energy sector, as well as normative tools and policy recommendations to use human rights law as a compass for developing energy systems that are not only renewable, but socially and gender-just.

Sustainable Development as a Cornerstone of Cities’ Engagement with International Law

Sustainable development may safely be regarded as a cornerstone of cities’ engagement with international law, an engagement which is certainly bound to increase in the time of COVID-19. This article revisits the historical trajectory of cities’ and local governments’ participation in sustainable development processes. It particularly focuses on the contemporary involvement of cities and their transnational networks in the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and associated Sustainable Development Goals. Subsidiarity and public participation are fully discussed as conceptual underpinnings of cities’ growing role in the pursuit of sustainability. The article concludes that, as long as cities continue to demonstrate leadership and innovation in advancing cutting- edge solutions to problems of sustainability as a result of mechanisms that secure the meaningful participation of the communities of people concerned, their place in the global partnership for sustainable development will inevitably become ever more prominent.

GENDER-RESPONSIVE GOVERNMENT TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE POLICIES – A PATH TO SUSTAINABLE PEACE AND POST‑CONFLICT RECONSTRUCTION

The article is devoted to the legal basis and direction of the Government of Ukraine in the development of gender-responsive state policy of the transition period. The international principles and commitments of Ukraine in the framework of transitional justice, taking into account the gender aspect, are revealed, as well as the international and national commitments of Ukraine in the framework of involving women in peacebuilding and participation. The article presents international experience of taking into account international standards and norms in order to protect women’s rights and build peace. Global evidence indicates that women’s meaningful participation in peace negotiations increases the duration of peace. Peace agreements with female signatories are more durable and have a significantly higher number of provisions aimed at political reform and higher implementation rates. The recent study investigating 352 peace agreements in 64 countries between 1990 and 2019 also found that there was a significant increase in the share of peace agreements with gender provisions, from below 10% in the 1990s to 45% in 2013. Yet, this practice appears to have been halted. In 2019, the share of agreements with gender provisions was only at 29%. Despite an increasing evidence about the important role of women, their expertise and meaningful participation in preventing and addressing conflict and sustaining peace, women are still under- represented in the peace processes. Between 1992 and 2019, women constituted, on average, only 13% of negotiators, 6% of mediators, and 6% of signatories in major peace processes worldwide. Present peacebuilding experiences also indicate that peace is likely to be lasting only if the security needs of the population are addressed in parallel with the political and socioeconomic aspects of conflict resolution and post-conflict recovery. Women’s exposure to conflict may result in their new roles and responsibilities and may open new opportunities for their greater involvement in public life, including peace and security decision-making. Likewise, gender equality positively influences the cohesion and effectiveness of the security sector in increasingly multidimensional peace processes.

Learning from the Past: Investigating the Income Restoration Programs in the Resettlement Work Plans of Thilawa Special Economic Zone, Yangon, Myanmar

This paper aims to investigate the Income Restoration Plans (IRPs) prepared in the previous Resettlement Work Plans (RWPs) of Thilawa Special Economic Zone (SEZ), Yangon, Myanmar, by employing three resettlement practices: JICA guidelines and the World Bank policies on resettlements (OP 4.12 and ESS 5) as benchmarks. There are three major objectives for this study: to observe the gaps between the resettlement policies and the practices, examine the potential shortcomings in the IRPs, and employ those lessons to improve future resettlement planning. Therefore, JICA and the World Bank policies on resettlements and the IRPs as described in the RWPs of Thilawa SEZs serve as important data sources used in this paper. The study found that IRPs lacked sufficient attention to address impoverishments and provide alternative sustainable livelihoods for the affected communities. First, the IRPs lacked assurances or guarantees on the employment status in/near SEZ areas for those whose livelihoods are affected and needed to secure alternative livelihoods. Second, they lacked sufficient support for those who would choose to be self-employed or establish a business enterprise. Third, there were shortcomings in the meaningful participation by the affected communities. Fourth, there was insufficient gender dimension incorporated into IRPs of the resettlement plan. Four policy recommendations are provided: assuring and guaranteeing the employment opportunities, providing infrastructure, technical and financial assistance for business establishment, deriving development opportunities and benefits from the project, and planning the planning process to become more inclusive and participatory.