National Working Group (NWG) Meeting on SSG

“Comprehensive and coordinated approach including the security sector is imperative to contain
COVID-19 pandemic in Nepal”
Nepal Centre for Security Governance (NCSG) organized an expert meeting on “The Role of Security Sector during COVID-19 pandemic” via webinar today, as a part its regular National Working Group Meeting of distinguished individuals of the security sector in Nepal. Respecting the control measures put in place by the Government of Nepal to contain the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, NCSG has resorted to online meetings, dialogues and discussions to map the contemporary security dimensions, and reaching out to the related stakeholders to take necessary actions. The meeting is the continuation of the discussion series that NCSG initiated regarding national priority issues on Human Security and Security Sector Governance in Nepal.

The meeting participants comprising of security professionals/experts from different security institutions of Nepal (viz. Nepali Army, Nepal Police and Armed Police Force), lawmakers, academicians /scholars, and rights activists, are in unison that a comprehensive and coordinated approach including the security sector is imperative to deal with the ongoing pandemic. Otherwise, the experts fear that the situation could be worsen by each passing day jeopardizing the overall human security condition in the country.

The meeting concluded that the government through nationwide lockdown has bought valuable time to get prepared on preventive and control measures, but has largely failed to material due to lack of proactiveness and necessary planning. The government also failed to learn from the experience of other countries, and continued showing its sloppiness despite repeated alarm from World Health Organization (WHO) putting Nepal in the vulnerable situation. In fact, the government and its infection control mechanism (including CCMC) lacked farsightedness to comprehend the wide-ranging implications of the pandemic, the result is unfolding into serious consequences with rapid growth in corona cases at present.

The government could have used the security sector more effectively, especially to bring back Nepali migrant workers from borders in more organized manner and handling the quarantine centers as per the guidelines of WHO, all of which are found to be the main reasons for sudden growth in the number of cases.

The experts suspect that our national capacity is already overwhelmed to the requirement for controlling the infection. Therefore, rather than getting involved in blame-game, Nepal needs a coordinated approach, involving all possible sectors and stakeholders, to deal with this difficult situation. Today, among others we need to focus on reinforcing our hospitals and health facilities, effectively deploy security personnel to control our borders and maintain peace and order, scale-up quarantines facilities, mobilize youth and CSOs under coordinated efforts where necessary, and on the top the government should remain proactive and get prepared for more tough situation, because worse is still to come.

Meeting Delegates:

S.N.	Name	Organization/Institution	Designation
1.	Abhaya R. Joshi	NCSG	Chairperson
2.	Dr. Deepak Prakash Bhatt	House of Representatives Federal Parliament of Nepal	Member
3.	Bala Nanda Sharma	National Defense University of Nepal (NDU) & Nepali Army	Chairperson/ Lt. General (Rtd.)
4.	Nepal Bhsuhan Chand	Nepali Army	Lt. General (Rtd.)
5.	Navaraj Dhakal	Nepal Police	AIG (Rtd.)
6.	Suresh Sharma	Nepali Army	Maj. General (Rtd.)
7.	Dr. Shambhu Ram Simkhada	National Defiance University	Member & Former Ambassador
8.	Hemanta Malla Thakur	Nepal Police	DIG (Rtd.)
9.	Shamsher Thakurathi	Nepali Army	Maj. General (Rtd.)
10.	Rabi Raj Thapa	Armed Police Force	AIG (Rtd.)
11.	Dr. Indra Adhikar	Policy Research Institute	Director
12.	Sobhakar Budhathoki	Peace and Justice Promotion Center	President
13.	Bikal Shrestha	Doctoral Scholar	Peking University