Rural Access Programme 3

Assets handover
All construction activities of the Mugu Humla Link Road completed in May, 2022. With the completion of the road, all stores and field offices at Gamgadhi, Bohorabada and Melchhyam have been closed. The project’s non-reportable assets such as furniture, electric device, gas geyser and heater, etc. have been distributed to 22 different local schools and offices, in congruence with RAP3 MHLR Assets Disposal Procedure and approval. Reportable assets are being handed over to different government and non-government offices as per prevailing rules and in agreement with BEK.

𝐇𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝟑𝟎𝐤𝐦 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐑𝐀𝐏𝟑 𝐌𝐮𝐠𝐮 𝐇𝐮𝐦𝐥𝐚 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐑𝐨𝐚𝐝

The RAP3 MHLR team is pleased to announce that the construction and handover of full length of MHLR is now complete. The remaining 30 km long road section of the UK aid funded Mugu Humla Link Road (MHLR) was officially handed over to the Infrastructure Development Office (IDO), Humla under the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Urban Development (MoPIUD), Karnali Province on 2nd April 2022. Representing MoPIUD, Mr. Devi Aidi, IDO Chief, Humla accepted the road handover of MHLR 30km section. The handover of the first 26 KM long section was done on 25th December 2020 from Gamgadhi to Darke Khola, 11.350 km long section from Darke to Chankheli on 30th September 2021 and the third section of 30km from Chankheli to Deuli was done on 2nd April 2022.

The handover programme was attended by representatives from MoPIUD, RAP3 MHLR, CDO Mugu, stakeholders, government officials and locals of Mugu and Humla. During the event, IDO Chief, Humla made the commitment to take necessary actions to maintain the quality of MHLR and requested MoPIUD, Karnali Province to allocate budget for road maintenance work. At the handover event, RAP3 MHLR Team Leader also expressed her sincere gratitude to all the government officials of federal, province and local level, project staff, beneficiaries and all those who have worked on or supported in any way in achieving the project’s objectives and successes.

The operation of vehicles has already resulted in benefits for the local population of Mugu and Humla. There is evidence of local people gaining access to improved transportation, medical services, selling fruits, grains and herbs produced in their villages and are happy with the reduction of cost in rice and other items. Shopkeepers in Humla are also equally excited to unload goods in front of their shop after the mobilization of vehicles in the MHLR road.

Now that locals have started experiencing positive changes brought by road access and transport services in their villages, they are more aware of the need for road maintenance and are hopeful that the concerned authorities will maintain MHLR and allow full service of roads in all seasons.

𝐒𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐬: 𝐓𝐚𝐫𝐚 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐝𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐁𝐚𝐦𝐚, 𝐌𝐮𝐠𝐮

Tara Baniya, working as a Social Mobiliser at RAP3 MHLR, came to Kathmandu for the first time in 2020 to attend the, “20 years of RAP” event, organised at the British Embassy, Kathmandu. She was full of curiosity about what the capital city would be like. As soon as she arrived at Tribhuvan International Airport, the sight of women and girls on scooters surprised her, and she kept looking at them until they crossed her path. At that very moment she wished she could also ride a scooter like those women, but she knew it was a long shot for her, so she pushed her desire away.

All this time, while working in RAP3 MHLR, Tara would sit behind her male colleagues on a motorbike to reach project sites. This means at times when no one was around, she would have to walk a long distance on foot to reach the work sites. Combined with her aspiration to learn to ride a motorbike and the encouragement of project staff, she made an attempt to materialise her ambition. Tara has now learned to ride a motorbike. This is indeed a very commendable instance as the society where Tara belongs, a woman riding a motorbike is not a norm. Tara is yet to get an official driving license which she is hoping to get soon.

This new skill will surely give a lot of freedom for Tara to tap into wider opportunities and grow. This is a moment of pride for Tara, as she is the first woman to learn how to ride a motorcycle in Mugu.

To mark International Women’s Day (IWD) 2022, RAP3 MHLR engaged all Central Office staff in a conversation around this year’s theme . The discussion focused on biases prevalent in the society and those broken by the project and by individuals. Various activities are being carried out in the field offices as well to celebrate IWD 2022.

𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐑𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐐𝐮𝐢𝐳

At RAP3 MHLR, all staff are required to understand the project’s values and work ethics, and the project ensures that all staff understand and comply with the RAP3 MHLR Codes of Conduct. Every year, all staff receive Codes of Conduct training and other mandatory courses, but the project has never conducted a separate test to evaluate how much staff have learned or retained information from the training materials. In addition, it was recommended in one of our internal Audits that it would be helpful to find out the effectiveness of our compulsory training programme. Therefore, we incorporated training materials into quiz questions to assess how much staff have learned and retained from three mandatory Code of Conduct courses: Anti-corruption, Behaviour and Safeguards as well as four other mandatory training: Safeguarding Guidelines and Best Practices; Feedback and Incident Handling and Reporting; Communication Guideline; and IT and Computer use Policy. We made the quiz more competitive for staff by offering cash prizes to the first three winners. The first winner scored a full mark of 30 points, while the second and third winners scored 29 and 28 points, respectively. There was a tie for third place, so the lucky winner was chosen from among six equal scoring staff by a lucky draw. The quiz has been completed by all staff of the project. Our auxiliary staff did not have access to the online platform, so they were assisted in-person to complete the quiz following COVID 19 safety protocols.

Congratulations to the winners and thank you to all the project staff for actively participating in the training retention quiz.