For over sixty years, the Nepal Red Cross Society (NRCS) has proudly served the people of Nepal. With over 1,600 offices around the country, NRCS volunteers and staff care for the health of their communities, bring relief after disasters, provide blood and ambulance services, and motivate youth with a humanitarian spirit in over 6,000 schools.
During the internal conflict, NRCS volunteers put their lives in danger to serve communities across the country, reaching areas that no others could access. After the Ghorka Earthquake in 2015, with support from International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the NRCS reached over 1.7 million Nepalis with relief and recovery support. More recently, NRCS provided similar help to affected persons after the Jajarkot earthquake of 2023 and the floods and landslides of 2024.Today, NRCS volunteers are in the streets in Birgunj informing communities how to protect themselves from the current cholera outbreak, and working across the hardest hit areas of Madhesh to support communities still struggling from the aftermath of drought.
However, a damaging dispute over the governance of the NRCS in Kathmandu has cast a pall over its humanitarian achievements at the community level. For several years, different groups have squabbled about the outcome of internal elections, resorting to the courts and to vilification in social and mainstream media. Political party politics have emerged in an institution for which neutrality is a bedrock “Fundamental Principle”, as solemnly agreed by NRCS and all the 191 members of the IFRC around the world. Happily, our recent surveys around Nepal show that communities still trust and value their local NRCS representatives. But this unending crisis had an undeniable negative impact on the NRCS at the national level.
All about World Red Cross Day 2019
At the request of the IFRC, and under the leadership of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, Minister for Women, Children and Senior CitizensNawal Kishor Sah Sudi and Minister of Home Affairs Ramesh Lekhak, the Government took action in Shrawan to support the NRCS to turn the page on these conflicts and return its focus to delivering humanitarian services. It appointed a temporary executive committee with a mandate to strengthen the NRCS constitution to avoid future politicization and hold fresh elections. This step has allowed the IFRC to refrain from strong action within its own rules.
This week, however, a group of individuals who have been engaged in the former disputes have once again resorted to the courts. This cycle must stop now. NRCS is for all Nepalis, not a prize to be won in court. We believe that this is also the conviction of the vast majority of NRCS members, volunteers and staff around the country. We are calling on the petitioners to put the future of NRCS above their own hurt feelings and interests.
In the long term, the most sustainable solution to these kinds of disputes will be the enactment of a Nepal Red Cross Law that clearly defines its mission, including its unique role as a neutral and independent humanitarian organization which is also auxiliary to the public authorities in the humanitarian field, as described in international law. NRCS is one of only a handful National Societies across the world that lacks this clear legal base, since it is a commitment of all National Societies and state parties to the Geneva Conventions, as an element of the Statutes of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. We are hopeful that the Government will also support this step to ensure the permanent recovery of the NRCS.
The NRCS embodies the humanitarian spirit of Nepal and of the global Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. Its volunteers are there to help their communities to be healthier, safer and resilient. They continue to do so despite the above distractions, but finalizing these disputes will be a great help to them in focusing on the work at hand.
(The author is the Head of Delegation of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies)
