Project Chiefs from NTNC's working areas gathered in Kathmandu for a two-day meeting, yesterday and the day before, to review the mid-yearly project-level performance for fiscal year 2019-20 (BS 2076-77). The meeting organized at its Central Office also had in attendance the NTNC's Governing Board of Trustees: Mr Ram Raj Regmi, Mr Shambhu Dangal, Ms Swati Thapa, and Member Secretary Yajna Nath Dahal.
Besides project-level priorities, discussions this year focused around areas for strengthening innovation and opportunity in NTNC's programme value and impact. Perspectives and actions being taken in response to some of the major challenges related to haphazard infrastructure development, human-wildlife conflict, growing wildlife rescue cases, changing community dynamics, new research interests, to the potential impacts of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) on tourism were discussed.
Opportunities for transforming NTNC's programme delivery through sound human resource management and mobilization, building enhanced capacity and specialized skills, along with improved monitoring, governance and accountability standards were highlighted throughout. Some critical aspects brought to attention by the Board of Trustees concerned "the need to strategize and synergize NTNC's resources at a time during the country's administration transition," where new policies and regulations are in the making.
Board members stressed on the scope for mediating transformative actions and channeling NTNC's expertise skills and resources further, continuing to inform and guide national policy and public consensus through advanced research and innovation, building new partnerships, integrating newer technologies and adopting performance-oriented measures for problem solving and task facilitation. In his address the Member Secretary said that although the country's transition into the recent federal governance system had come with certain regulatory and administrative constraints, especially in the context of conservation area management; that it was "an opportune time to move the focus of both provincial and local leaders toward NTNC's vision of 'Conservation for Prosperity', especially since we have been directly working to help build community responsibility for nature conservation together with sustainable development initiatives for over three decades.
