Annual Report 2023 covers Centre for Social Change (CSC)’s achievements in the period of January 2023 to December 2023.
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Centre for Social Change (CSC) is pleased to present its ninth annual report highlighting its contribution to promote peace, social cohesion, governance, civic engagement, and climate justice in Nepal through research, dialogue, capacity building, public communication, and community engagement initiatives.
CSC, as an emerging social think-tank would like to continue its important work in the coming years. Year 2025 will mark 10 years of its establishment and also the year of reviewing its existing policies and strategies as per the changing socio-political and governance context of the country. The global political context and the confronted socio-economic and environmental concerns will also determine the scope of CSC’s future works, as our interventions are already closely linked with the global concerns that severely impact us locally.
In this context, CSC is already on its way to establishing itself as a resource organization, particularly in the field of peace, governance, climate justice, labor reform, migration management, and strengthening the civic space. For this, CSC aims to further develop a robust knowledge hub, dialogue platforms, and public communication system in its working themes, to directly benefit the Nepali milieu. In the upcoming years, CSC strongly aspires to work towards building National Academy for Peace and Sustainability with strong focus on policy research, decentralized multi-stakeholder dialogue platforms, and capacity building initiatives in its working themes. In order to translate these ideas into action, CSC is open for collaborations with development agencies, academia, governments, civil society, and media in the best, sustainable way possible.
Reflecting on the past few years, Nepal underwent several ups and downs and witnessed many socio- economic and political changes. Despite the challenges, the country is striving to stabilize democracy and federal governance practices in a more prudent way. Supporting the efforts, CSC successfully implemented dialogue initiatives to foster federal structures that are committed to achieving peace and prosperity in Nepal.
In the year 2023, CSC was able to produce pertinent study reports on climate relevant issues, governance conflicts, social cohesion and conflict transformation. By producing knowledge products in the forms of handbooks, training manuals, infographics, study reports, and policy briefs regularly, CSC continues to contribute towards the larger goal of knowledge building. CSC podcast series was also one of the major attempts in 2023 that contributed to this achievement. We implemented two significant projects in 2023 covering trust and social cohesion and peace-building efforts in four provinces of Nepal. Our journey, however, was not without challenges and in the face of adversity, CSC persevered from its unwavering commitment to its mission.
Looking ahead to aspirations of 2024, CSC has ambitious plans, and the organization strides with confidence that with continuous support from government, stakeholders, local and donor communities, and our beloved supporters, we can achieve a peaceful and cohesive future. CSC also takes this opportunity to thank its team for their continued support and belief in the leadership.
Hence, CSC invites you to join us in this momentous journey through this annual report 2023.
Onward to a brighter 2024!
WHO WE ARE
Centre for Social Change (CSC) is a Kathmandu-based think tank working on various aspects and issues connected to the changing socio-political dynamics of Nepal. We were established in 2015 with the main aim of advancing social change through evidence-based policy advocacy, education and grassroot engagement. Using multi-dimensional social impact approaches that largely focus on research, advocacy, dialogues, and community mobilization, our working methods are primarily focused on:
- Generating knowledge and concrete evidence for strong policy advocacies
- Creating democratic spaces for discourse and dialogues among local communities and key stakeholders
- Empowering active role of citizens in governance processes
- Strengthening state-society relationships
Vision
CSC envisions a peaceful, just and inclusive society where everyone has an equal opportunity to live a dignified life.
Mission
Our mission is to advance social change through education, evidence-based policy advocacy and grassroots engagement.
Values
CSC is guided by an ethical mindset and values that guide its decision-making processes and accountable actions. We believe that social change can be achieved through strong community partnerships and trust among individuals, groups and institutions.
CSC’s working areas
- Governance and Democracy
- Climate change and climate governance
- Labour migration and Labour rights
- Civic space and Civic engagement
CSC’S 2023 INITIAITVES TO BRING SOCIAL CHANGE
Addressing climate change
Through the past years of study and evidences gathered, CSC has identified that climate change is a cross cutting issue that interjects in all areas of governance in Nepal. It is now a jarring reality that Nepal is rapidly experiencing the effects of rising temperature and extreme weather events, which are already affecting the nature, biodiversity, human settlements and societies, amplifying the intricacies of natural ecosystems, indigenous people and marginalized communities pushing them to the frontline and making them the most vulnerable groups who will end up carrying the disproportionate burden of the climate crisis. Moreover, Nepal’s contribution to the global Green House Gas emissions is close to negligible but is the fourth most vulnerable country in the world to the effects of climate change. CSC recognizes this unsettling disparity and emphasizes a dire need for climate justice.
Realizing this need of the hour, CSC through its recent endeavors has heavily focused on leveraging digital tools and spaces to monitor, assemble and disseminate evidence-based knowledge on the functioning of Climate Governance in Nepal to achieve its climate commitments. One the most recently deployed tools on this matter is Climate Window- an informative series of factsheets, policy briefs, infographics and short reports fundamentally aimed to increase awareness of people, government representatives and policymakers to help develop inclusive, innovative and sustainable climate solutions.
Further on, CSC aims to build on this initiative by optimizing the potential of digital platforms, civic space and research to create a strong base of evidence propel climate policies and actions across state and non-state actors and rigorously spotlight the government led decisions and actions against climate change.
Developing capacities of local actors in conflict transformation
In the past years, CSC through its multiple endeavors has emphasized that dialogue is an essential tool or skill to build in order to achieve lasting peace and these dialogues are not only important among the national level stakeholders but are very much necessary at community levels too. Adhering to this conception, CSC throughout 2023 actively focused on building dialogue facilitation skills of local citizens and imparting knowledge on key principles of conflict management. Here is how CSC worked with various groups in society to fulfil this goal in 2023.
