By: Christian Kruse, Chairperson, Trianglen and Johnny Baltzersen, Chairperson CICED (ed.)
Reading time: 5 min
“Trianglen has successfully contributed to village development in Syangja and Kavre districts, but is now at a crossroads where we say no to larger private and public donations. We will continue with smaller climate-related activities and invite others with the desire and insight to contribute and strengthen the capacity that Trianglen in Denmark still has.”
This is how Trianglen’s founder and longtime chairman Christian Kruse begins his article in Nepal Vision, the member magazine of the Danish-Nepalese Society.
And it is this invitation to participate and to continue to support and draw on the capacity of Trianglen that CICED has accepted.
Instead of interpreting the text, we give the floor to Christian Kruse. Below is the rest of the article, which Christian has made available along with photos.
As you will see, there is a nice overlap between the focus of Triangle’s efforts in Syangja and Kavre districts and CICED’s engagements in Helambu and Upper Mustang.
In a future issue, we will give the floor to ASK Nepal and unfold ideas for future collaboration.
Triangle and Nepal
“From the beginning, the core activity was the Danish families’ annual contribution of DKK 5,000 for the development of a village. The first year in 9 villages, the last year 41 villages.
The money was used to organize the village with a village committee that democratically decided what the money would be used for. Primarily for social and community purposes, but increasingly for microloans to initiate income-generating activities among the most disadvantaged in the village.
Over the 15 years, over 5,000 people have received loans for worthwhile small investments, and as far as we know, not a single loan has defaulted. To varying degrees, the villages have therefore saved significant amounts of money for the continuation of the lending business.
Inclusion and collaboration in villages
But beyond that, the organization of the village population has been the most important thing. The private Danish donations have helped to break down many of the divisions that characterize Nepali society, and the result has been that all the villages have actually created cooperation between poor and less poor, between the sexes and between various castes and ethnic groups.
The success in attracting private Danish village supporters has created the basis for the project funds that Triangle has received from CISU over the years. The projects have been seen as a supplement to the private support and have addressed issues that required greater financial commitment.
Initially, it was the further development of the village community that the village committees were responsible for. Triangle and our partner organization, ASK, which has its headquarters in Syangja but eventually also opened in Kavre, intensified work on eliminating discrimination and corruption.
In a democratic manner, in which Dalits also participated fully, forums were created where village needs, own resources and external resources were discussed.
The village was also trained in project formulation, which for almost all Triangle villages meant getting government support for up to several infrastructure and other common activities.
In addition, the villages were trained to better understand public finances and with training in accounting and budgeting, they became much better at exposing corruption and nepotism.
Organic and sustainable agriculture
As we all know, the main occupation of the villages is agriculture, and there was quickly a desire to help them transition to more sustainable and profitable farming systems. It was about preserving the land’s cultivation capacity, but – as is always the case in Nepal – not least about getting a better economy out of it.
Like everywhere else on the planet, farmers were used to methods based on highly productive varieties with the corresponding necessary input of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Production increased, but so did costs. And no one had the full picture.
Together with ASK, we conducted a study to analyze the costs and revenues of growing the crops that were sold on the market. In Kavre, typically potatoes.
The results showed very clearly that when the income from the sale of the crops was deducted from the purchase costs, including chemical fertilizers and pesticides, there was nothing left to pay for the family’s work. In bad weather conditions, an outright deficit.
It was something of a wake-up call, raising the question of whether a less input-heavy agriculture with greater diversification would be economically superior to chemical-based farming.
There were already signs of soil depletion and declining yields, and for most families there was unused labor and therefore no problem with increased manual weeding, compost production, planting fruit and fodder trees, production of organic plant protection products and other organic farming practices.
ASK and Trianglen have developed their organizational and social skills over the years, but in Nepal ASK is primarily known as an organization that has won awards both nationally and internationally for the best efforts for climate resilient and ecologically and economically sustainable farming systems. So helping farmers to convert to systems where monocultures are replaced with a diversified production of 5-6 different annual crops on the same area has been a welcome task for ASK, and at the same time an important argument for the Danish families’ support for the villages.
The future requires new forces
Much has been achieved, but what remains are the three crucial questions that apply to all development aid: Will the activities continue when the aid has ended? Do the ideas spread to other areas? Does it have positive political implications?
Fortunately, we can say three times yes. Politicians have responded with all kinds of support, including direct financial support. Neighboring areas with uninvolved villages have taken up the methods. And the trained farmers continue with the profitable organic farming methods and have recently overcome the challenge of creating a market for the local high-quality products.
When both external evaluations and CISU’s consultants agree with this positive assessment of the effort, one might ask why we in Trianglen have chosen to scale back significantly, as mentioned in the introduction.
The answer is simple: The 15 years have not passed without a trace for those of us who have worked on the matter, and there doesn’t seem to be any younger people who have the time, desire and courage to take on the work – and not least the great responsibility that comes with it.”
And this is where the new collaboration between Trianglen, ASK Nepal and CICED comes in. We look forward to telling you more during 2025.
