Innovative Sustainable Low Cost Technologies Developed in Nepal

The ICIMOD Knowledge Park tests innovations for those who live and farm in the Himalayas   

The village of Godavari sits on the southern slopes of Kathmandu Valley, a short ride from Nepal’s capital. Here, in a forest, is the knowledge park of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), an intergovernmental knowledge-sharing institute.

A visit to the park is a dip into a living library of tradition, culture and innovation relating to development, farming and agroforestry. The collection both preserves ancient knowledge and evolves as new ideas transform Nepal’s rural landscape. Over 30 hectares, researchers select, test and showcase various technologies useful for those living and working in the Himalayan region.

Since it opened in 1993, the park has tested sustainable farming practices suited to the mid-hills of the Hindu-Kush Himalayas, a mountainous region stretching across Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan.

The park hosts various low-tech tools intended to reduce poverty and conserve the habitats on which villagers depend. Researchers work to improve crop yields, develop better soil and water management techniques, and promote income-generating activities such as beekeeping and growing kiwi fruit.

More than 40,000 people have visited the park. Government representatives, NGOs and UN organisations, community leaders, scientists and academics come to learn about practices they can disseminate.

The park also organises training that is popular with students, farmers and women, who are entrusted with the care of children, the elderly and the household, and eager to learn new ways to manage their domestic routine more efficiently.

Hundreds of people have been trained in subjects ranging from agricultural technologies suitable for sloping land to the use of geographic information systems to prepare forest inventories of tree species. These hands-on sessions are designed as a grass-root tool for technology transfer. People can adopt what best suits their business and traditions.

For instance, the park’s rainwater harvesting pond has been replicated in six of Nepal’s 75 districts.

In recent years, ICIMOD embarked on a community outreach programme, teaming up with local NGOs and other organisations to increase the impact of the technologies it showcases and scale up their use.

The knowledge park’s staff organise demonstrations for communities off-site, travelling to neighbouring villages as well as to mountain communities living far away, such as in the Everest region of Nepal, Meghalaya in India, the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh, and Badakhshan and Bamyan provinces in Afghanistan.

Over the past few years, ICIMOD has also distributed more than 250 kilograms of seeds and 600,000 seedlings from the knowledge park’s nursery to agricultural organisations and farmers. 

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• Sustainable Development
• Sustainable Communities
• Development Communications