Citizens, Society and State- Crafting An Inclusive Future For Nepal

Foreword Citizens' Right has been catapulted to the forefront at the beginning of the 21st century and has received substantial visibility and attention in recent years. Social inclusion and exclusion reflects the close and complex relationship, interaction, and complementarily between citizens, society. and state. Many researchers have been carried out in the area of citizens, society, and state in recent decades. These studies point to the fact that when citizens of a country are informed and empowered, it strengthens functioning of the state and well-being of a society. Furthermore, an empowered and informed citizen helps promote "stable and pluralistic democracy" by demanding guaranteed human rights in a liberal and multi party democracy.

Social Inclusion Research Fund (SIRF) was started in 2005 on the initiative of civil society of Nepal and the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Kathmandu. Government of Nepal welcomed this initiative as highly relevant and endorsed the formation of SIRF Screening Committee represented by civil society, international scholars, and government agencies. SNV Nepal was entrusted with the task of managing SIRF, which has now a track record of having completed 303 individual researches and two major institutional research collaborations. SIRF has been supporting Harka Gurung Research Fellowships and Mathias Moyersoen Research Apprenticeships to conduct research on social inclusion and exclusion. SIRF seeks to produce high-quality and critical research on causes of social exclusion in Nepal and ways to accommodate and manage diversity, to make social science research more relevant to the excluded and disadvantaged groups and their agendas, and to ensure that research more effectively contributes to policy and public debate and strengthen "stable democracy".

Introduction The discourse and policy debate on social inclusion and exclusion, much like other subjects in political, economic, social, developmental, environmental concepts and movements, have been introduced to Nepal through external and international influences, interactions, and creative pressures. Heightened focus on inclusion was provided by the women's equality movement in Nepal, albeit supported by the international movement. It began way back during the UN Conference on Women in 1975 in Nairobi, Kenya. Similarly, the UN Conference on Sustainable Development and Environment (UNCED) 1992 in Rio de Janeiro provided further support to this agenda. In the decades that followed, there were many international covenants, conventions, declarations, and protocols which strengthened the idea of an inclusionary society and state that would provide universal human rights to all citizens.

When the women's inclusion movement was going on globally, there was also a global impetus to ensure the rights of the child; rights of the aboriginals, indigenous nationalities, and tribes; and people in difficult circumstances such as with disabilities, inter alia.

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