+977-1-5147166 [email protected]

 General Background

Environment, Culture, Agriculture, Research and Development Society, Nepal (ECARDS-Nepal) was founded in 1991 to act as a non-profit, non-governmental, non-sectarian social development organization. It was set up to foster sustainable community development through people’s organization and leadership.

The basic philosophy of ECARDS-Nepal is to create awareness and promote understanding of the dynamics of the development process by empowering the local community. People need to be involved in problem identification, planning, resource mobilization, implementation and evaluation of a program. ECARDS-Nepal strives to serve as a vital link in the dynamic process of environmental management that helps to enhance and sustain agricultural productivity. It provides attention to socio-cultural factors that are critical to project planning and execution.

ECARDS-Nepal was set up to foster sustainable community development through people’s organization and leadership and is registered with the District Administration Office, Kathmandu and affiliated to the Social Welfare Council.

 Mission and Objectives

The mission of ECARDS-Nepal is to empower the people by improving the socio-economic condition of the local community through better management of available resources in complement with national development efforts. Its goal is to improve the socio-economic condition of the poorest of the poor through better management of natural resources. ECARDS-Nepal is working with the people to promote various activities that benefit the poor, disadvantaged, Marginalized and ethnic minority groups and other communities in the country with their full participation. ECARDS-Nepal seeks to achieve the following objectives in pursuing its goal:

  • To establish self-reliant and self-governing local level organizations capable of solving their problems themselves;
  • To create awareness and work with the most disadvantaged and marginalized groups of people with special emphasis on women and children;
  • To promote activities that benefit special target groups (marginalized communities and ethnic minorities) with their full participation in need assessment, program implementation, technology dissemination and development of their associations and cooperatives;
  • To implement income generating programs and micro-enterprises especially designed for poverty alleviation, co-participating with the target community;
  • To undertake programs in areas of rural community development, health and sanitation, sustainable agriculture, rural infrastructure development and natural resource management on a sustainable and environmentally friendly manner; and
  • To undertake research in agric-culture and socio-economic fields.

 Vision of Partnership

Sustainability, participatory development, and cost and time effectiveness constitutes the key elements of the principle of partnership followed by ECARDS-Nepal supplemented with motivation, participation in community development and sustainable institution building at the grass-roots level. The values of ECARDS-Nepal partnership are:

  1. Focus on the poor and deprived sections, emphasizing on women and marginalized communities.
  2. Belief in the intrinsic capacity of every person, particularly the poor, to help oneself.
  3. Participatory approach.
  4. Truth, honesty of purpose, openness, human dignity and fairness.
  5. Mutual understanding.
  6. Sharing and organizing forums for mutual benefit.

 Affiliation

Based on the guiding principles, operating under a mutual understanding of the development process and sharing and organizing forums for mutual benefit, ECARDS-Nepal is affiliated with the following organization and networks:

  • Social Welfare Council of Nepal (Affiliation No. 388/048) Nepal.
  • NGO Federation of Nepal
  • CARITAS-Nepal Partner’s Network
  • DP-Network, disaster preparedness networks of NGOs/INGOs/GOs
  • National Alliance for Food Security Nepal (NAFOS)
  • Civil Society Alliance for Nutrition Nepal (CSANN), National Executive Committee Member
  • Sustainable Soil Management Program (SSMP) Network
  • Food Right Network (fRnet)