7. HARP - The Project and the Process

7.1 Project set up and institutional links
A detailed timeline of UK support for agricultural services in Nepal and the process of establishing HARP can be found in Annex 1 (link to annex 1). The bilaterally funded Hill Agriculture Research Project (HARP) was formally agreed between His Majesty's Government of Nepal (HMGN), and the British Government in September 1996. The UK Overseas Development Administration (sic) agreed to provide £11.661 million and HMGN £1.122 million, over the period September 1996 to September 2001 to give a total funding of £12.783 million. This period is currently being considered for extension to 2004 so that HARP can follow through all research projects for which funding has already been agreed and work with other agricultural service providers on the establishment of a national competitive grant system (CGS). In any case, a new call for concept notes for projects to begin in 2001 has been just issued. This will require some sort of continuation of HRP until 2004, unless a national CGS that could satisfactorily take over management of HRP projects is established before then.


7.2 The two main project components

• Support for the institutional strengthening and change necessary for Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) to take over professional, administrative and financial responsibility for Lumle and Pakhribas (handed over to NARC in July 1998 when the expatriate Directors were succeeded by Nepali Heads of Station). TCO support to the two stations continued as the two HARP Research Advisers use these important establishments as their operational base. Their role was to support the five Hill Research Stations covered by HARP and extended to cover all research providers in the country.
• The development of an improved hill agriculture research system which would have a greater impact on farmers. The core objective of this was to separate the provider of research services from the purchaser - to increase efficiency and performance - and to introduce more competition among a greater number of actors providing research services. This was a new concept in Nepal. The main tool to achieve this was a Hill Research Programme (HRP) involving competitive contract research. The conceptual framework and much of the procedures for implementation of this competitive research funding draws on previous experience of DFID's Renewable Natural Resources Knowledge Strategy. Major funding for this programme commenced in July 1998. While it should be recognised that HARP was never explicitly designed as a livelihoods or poverty reduction intervention, any agricultural service intervention implicitly addresses the livelihoods of the poor in countries like Nepal where agriculture is the main source of income and where farmers still constitute a large proportion of the poor. Indeed, although the purpose of HARP has always been to establish a sustainable and effective hill agriculture research system, it is now taking place under DFID's overarching livelihoods umbrella and its ultimate aim is now accepted to be to have an impact improving livelihoods.

It was envisaged that the injection of substantial funding through the HRP would lead to significant changes in the working practices of all hill stations.
The institutional support package to NARC concentrates on:

• research management (planning, programming, projectised budgeting, monitoring and evaluation);
• the definition of mandates for hill stations other than Lumle and Pakhribas;
• information flows (reporting, documentation, feedback mechanisms and dissemination; access to relevant literature, linkages within NARC and with national and international organisations).

It also included provision for a Change-Management Specialist to facilitate workshops with NARC and others in order to define work programmes more precisely. The approach also involves a system of sanctions (stopping projects if rules of implementation are broken). There is also a degree of inflexibility: researchers are not allowed to alter the purpose or outputs of their projects; they can however change activities within the overall budget.