Nepal - a decade of fragile peace

A decade since Nepal’s peace agreement was signed, the country still faces challenges related to conflict and constitutional change. Our latest briefing recommends urgent concrete and coordinated action to ensure peace.

On 21 November of last year, Nepal marked a decade since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended ten years of violent conflict. By the end of the war, over 13,000 (INSEC, 2010) people had died and over 1,300 had disappeared (ICRC, 2010).

Remarkably Nepal has succeeded in bringing all sides of armed conflict into a peaceful political mainstream. But the drawn-out political transition to a secular federal republic continues to pose challenges. The disarmament and demobilisation of the Maoist ‘People’s Liberation Army’ and subsequent integration of former combatants into the Nepal Army, as well as their rehabilitation into society, were major achievements that helped consolidate peace.

The briefing Nepal: a decade of fragile peace, sets out the findings from Saferworld’s Early Warning Early Response programming and Capacities for Peace projects in Nepal. It highlights a series of potential flashpoints for conflict and/or tensions in the country in the coming months and years, as the country undergoes a process of constitutional change at the local and national level.

Capacities for Peace is a project that was undertaken by Saferworld and Conciliation Resources from September 2013 to February 2016, funded by the EU under the Instrument for Stability. The project aimed to support local actors to undertake or take part in early warning and crisis response processes.

Read more about Saferworld’s work in Nepal.