Q&A with Arend van Riessen
BY ROGER O. BURKS, JR. | November 26, 2007
Arend van Riessen, Mercy Corps' country representative based in Kathmandu, first came to Nepal from the Netherlands in September 1982.
Describing himself as "rather omnivorous," van Riessen has spent the last quarter-century engaged in a wide variety of humanitarian work, including stints as a land and water management engineer, social and rural development specialist and rural development team leader. The programs he worked on ranged from assessment of a $100 million water project to design for a program to prevent child trafficking.
Mercy Corps contacted van Riessen for a short consultancy early in 2006, and he soon ended up at the helm for the organization's initiatives in Nepal, highlighted by its Youth Initiative for Peace and Reconciliation (YIPR) program.
"I liked the Mercy Corps people I met and the things I heard," he said. "I also wanted to do a long-term job again after eight years of short-term assignments. Long-term jobs give more headaches but also more job satisfaction, as you can more easily point out what you did and achieved; as a short-term consultant, you're more of just a passerby."
Through frequent visits to Mercy Corps programs throughout Nepal — as well as by living here for more than two decades — van Riessen has a better sense than most of the country's ongoing challenges and opportunities.
What are the biggest challenges facing Nepal today?
Arend van Riessen: Nepal is a poor, landlocked, mountainous country with a feudal society, low education rates and a Hindu caste system that pervades all communities and public life. The remote far-western hills where I started work are an example. In 1982 they had no roads or telephones and — except in two small towns — no electricity. Dalits ("untouchables" at the bottom of the caste system) were not allowed to enter high caste houses and teashops or drink the same water as others.
Now, 25 years later, still only the main towns of western Nepal have (unreliable) road access and telecommunication; not the villages. And although the caste system is less powerful now, Dalits are still unwelcome in most high Hindu caste homes. And if they want to turn to the government for help, they have to deal with high Hindu caste officers (95 percent of all government staff) who look down on them and don't mind to cheat illiterate villagers.
It is logical that the Maoists found ready recruits among the disenfranchised to start an insurgency. The conflict they waged for 10 years has further highlighted the injustice of the Nepalese social and government system but did not solve any problems, only created more. Now that Maoists and government are implementing a peace accord, things are back to near normal. Whatever government and law enforcement there had been in the past were been demolished during the conflict.
Now people see violence and crime as a justified way to solve their problems — sometimes the only way.
What is Mercy Corps doing to help change that?
Across the organization, our goal is to create secure, just and productive communities.
In the communities we work with, people from different socio-cultural, economic and political backgrounds cooperate for the welfare of the whole community in a peaceful environment. As a result, the poorest and most disenfranchised feel respected, equal and productive as community members. Because of this sense of inclusion, they don't have grudges and feelings of injustice about their relations with other villagers and outside agencies.
Our aspiration is that all people will have increased their opportunities to improve their livelihoods and health.
Can you give me a brief summary of the YIPR program, in your own words?
There are 820 Village Youth Committees, which implement peace building and community development activities in five districts with support from the project. Our partner NGO, Backward Society Education (BASE), helped formed these committees and works with us on most aspects of the program.
Through YIPR, Mercy Corps tries to make youth work as peacemakers in their communities. We increase their understanding of peace and governance issues and give them tools to analyze and solve conflict problems. Youth achieve this through dialogue, campaigns, radio programs, sports, cultural programs, and community service projects.
What are some of the most exciting things that the youth are doing right now with BASE and YIPR?
Youths have taken the initiative to begin community development activities ranging from road repairs to paying for the education of poor families' children. During the floods of August 2007, these youth traveled to flooded areas to assess the damage, determine affected families' needs and help organizations like BASE and Red Cross dispense relief supplies and other assistance.
Now is a time when political youth organizations that use violence to solve local problems are gaining support in western Nepal. However, such organizations are not getting a foothold in the YIPR villages. Instead, youth in the places where we work have developed more positive attitudes through peace building, cooperation and development.
What are some of the biggest unmet challenges and opportunities for Mercy Corps in Nepal right now?
At the forefront are injustices such as caste discrimination, withholding of land rights, corruption, and nepotism. The combined cancer of these things puts the impetus for change into the hands of the general populace, and especially youth. It emphasizes the need for grassroots action.
Nepal's rugged geography and limited infrastructure also make for big challenges. It is extraordinarily difficult to improve livelihoods and increase youth access to jobs in inaccessible mountain areas that are many miles away from services, markets and communications infrastructure.
If money and logistics were not an issue, what would you like to see Mercy Corps accomplish in Nepal?
First of all, I'd like to work for better livelihoods, increased justice and peace, and jobs for 50,000 youths, farmers and their families we work with — who are mostly ethnic minorities and Dalits in remote villages — through continued economic peace building and development.
We'd expand staff and programming to allow Mercy Corps and our partners to work on land rights, skill training and business development. I'd also like to see us work on increasing the resiliency of poor communities and youth to be able to better cope in the face of conflict and natural disasters.
My fascination with Nepal has remained as strong as ever. I am always eager to help — and see — its people succeed.
Over the last five years, more than 89% of resources allocated directly to programs.