Social Mobilization and Ecotourism

Nepal , in globe is identified as owner of the highest peak, Mount Everest , fascinating landscape and cultural diversity. Hence, Nepal bears high potentialities in ecotourism development. In Nepal , the development activities are said to be not spontaneous but induced that is directed with a vested interest of a group of people that creates problems in active, meaningful & equitable people participation and was failure indeed. To get rid of this it is need to mobilize the social groups from planning till evaluation process and use optimum local resources.

Social Mobilization is an essential tool for mobilizing and engaging isolated, passive and poor members of society, hence its popularity with poverty reduction and decentralized governance programmes worldwide. Its effectiveness depends to a large extent on the appropriateness of the approaches used within a given cultural, socio-economic and political environment. On the whole, it is an effective tool for building a well-informed, proactive and strong civil society, making it a valuable partner for government and the private sector in shaping national development that is equitable and sustainable.

Friends of Nature have realized to focus its work in the sector of Social Mobilization and Ecotourism. Only the effort of Single organization can not come up with the issues regarding this. FON wishes cooperation of other organization in this field.

The main objectives of this programme are as follows:

• To conduct development projects in the bottom-up approach through people participation through people mobilization.
• To promote Ecotourism in rural area.
• To conduct research on development activities and its social impact
• To prepare training manual of leadership training.
• To prepare (PM&E) participatory monitoring and evaluation guidelines for field practitioners.
• To advocate in government and public level for the implication and monitoring of different polices..

For more information, contact
Suraj Dawadi
Coordinator, Social Mobilization and Ecotourism
Email: sdawadi@fonnepal.org