Programs

Peace Monitoring Project

Since August 2016, COCAP | NepalMonitor.org has extended its platform into a comprehensive Peace Monitoring Platform. With the support of the Asia Foundation the database now includes reporting from district-level newspapers and introduced a more robust coding of violent incidents and public contestations recorded. Initially piloted to include local-level media of 10 districts, the project has since January 2017 been extended to include district-level newspapers from 25 districts of Nepal’s 75 districts. Preliminary results of the pilot indicated that by including local papers from 10 sample districts alone the coverage of relevant reports for the database increased by 30 percent.

Apart from including additional sources of information the coding design for incidents recorded has also been improved to make it comparable to other country’s violence datasets in the region. The project now records variables such as type of incidents, cause, impact and various cross cutting issues such as gender based violence (GBV), dalit, or election-related violence. The project monitors any incidents of physical violence and other forms of collective contestations and coercive actions with the objective to:

  • Better understand conflict and violence dynamics in Nepal.
  • Support effective development programming by donors and international agencies.
  • Provide an instrument for civil society to advocate more effectively for reform and conflict- sensitive policy making.
  • Gather robust data to help monitor Nepal’s progress towards fulfilling its commitments under Sustainable Development Goal 16 regarding the issues of peace, justice, governance and human rights.

NepalMonitor.org

In November 2014, COCAP started new conflict prevention and protection initiative, NepalMonitor.org, supported by PBI. The initiative is based on an online system designed to alert local organizations about human rights and security incidents in their area. NepalMonitor.org allows anyone to easily share incidents with local, national, and international organizations. The initiative maps reports from media, collected by large reputable organizations, or sent directly by individuals from the field. It shares this information with Human Rights Defenders and subscribed organizations and individuals via an online platform, by email or by SMS. The NepalMonitor.org team also does advocacy on behalf of HRD at risk with national and international organizations. With its innovative approach, based on the Ushahidi system first developed in Kenya in 2008, NepalMonitor.org will help local and national human rights organizations to better respond to human rights and security incidents and ultimately help to keep their staff and citizens safe.

To subscribe to alerts sign up at:

https://www.nepalmonitor.org/subscribe

To report:

Send an email to alert@nepalmonitor.org

Conference/Campaigns

COCAP is a campaign based organization. To pressurize the government and the policy makers on crucial socio-political issues, it organizes campaigns collectively in collaboration with the civil society, member organizations, volunteers and others. Time and again, COCAP has organized different campaigns on peace, human rights and other issues:

1. Trans-Nepal Cycle Campaign on the Issue of Disappeared Peoples, 2009
2. Nationwide Youth Pressure Campaign for Constitution Making (NYPCCM), 2010
3. Citizen’s Campaign for Peace and Constitution, 2011
4. Nationwide Collective Campaign for the Elimination of Caste Based Discrimination and Untouchability, 2012

Find all reports in our resources section

Human Rights

COCAP has been working on human rights issue mainly in two ways. Firstly, it trains and educates human right defenders on their roles and responsibilities. Secondly, it monitors the human rights violations during public protests and mass demonstrations:

Human Rights Education

COCAP has been relentlessly working on educating human rights defenders in different layers of the society. In national and regional level, it provides trainings and orientations to its member organizations, volunteers and other human rights defenders on different aspects of human rights like their roles and responsibilities, code of conduct of hr defenders, human rights principles, human rights monitoring and reporting etc. These member organizations and hr defenders further share their experiences and knowledges in the community and grass root level, where they directly work. COCAP, hence, works on the promotion of culture of human rights at all levels of the society. On December 6, 2012, COCAP organized an interaction on “Code of Conduct of Human Rights Defenders”. Similarly, COCAP, as the secretariat of DMN, initiated an interaction on, “Role ad Responsibility of Demonstrators and State Authority during Public Protests” on January 10, 2012, which aimed to provide a common platform to the central level leaders of major political parties who play decisive role in terms of devising the means to exercise their rights to freedom of association, assembly and expression and law enforcement authorities who have the duty to respect and protect those rights. COCAP was one of the two coordinating organizations of the 4th Human Rights National Magnameet, 2012.

Human Rights Monitoring

During the three-week protests that took place in April 2006 to bring down monarchy, COCAP human rights monitoring volunteers were vital to assisting injured protestors and security personnel to safety. In the post-conflict context, it has focused more in monitoring the possible human rights violations during public protests. As a secretariat to Demonstration Monitoring Network (DMN), a loose forum of human rights monitoring organizations in Kathmandu, COCAP coordinates communication and mobilization of human rights defenders during public protests and works as secretariat of information during such events.

Capacity Building

COCAP provides trainings on non-violent conflict transformation and peace building, project management, monitoring and evaluation, and facilitation and presentation skills to its volunteers, member organization representatives and staffs. COCAP also provides networking opportunities and exposure to its members and volunteers. It also provides certain hardware support to the needy organizations. COCAP assists member organizations in documentation, writing grant proposals and preparing reports, brochures and organizational profiles. COCAP will continue to carry out these activities to enhance the capacity of its members and volunteers. Besides, COCAP will continue its practice of inviting volunteers and interns from within the nation and abroad.