This Oredit Proposal 19 prepared in the context ot the need tor further financial support tor the above mentioned PhD candidate who is about to finish his preparatory phase at ETH in Zu rich. The preparatory phase, supported by a NIDECO fellowship and under the supervis of Prof. Dr. Klaus Seeland, ends by October 2004.
The NRTI in Lobesa, Bhutan, was established in 1992 with the mandate to train niid-level technicaF support staff of the Natural Resource Management (NRM) sector. The institute has received Swiss assistance since its establishment and has, under this coflaboration, built up a pool of qualified faculty members. In June 2003 the Royal University of Bhutan (RUB) was launched and NRTI has become an official federal college of this University. Thus, in addition to the existing mandate, the institute will have to start offering a degree course in the area of NRM by the end of the gth Five-Year-Plan (mid 2007).
This “upgrading“ of NRTI, amongst else, necessitates efforts to build up the research capacity of some faculty members to a higher academic level. Helvetas has been and still is supporting NRTIs Human Resource Development. However, the mandate ot the NGO does not inc firiancing higber studies such as PhDs. Though NRTI and RUB have aFready made some promising contacts with alternative funding sources the actual planning and implementation of such support is baund to still take same tirne. Looking at the normal duration of PhD studies this could seriously hamper the planned start of the degree course in 2007.
The Royal Civil Service Commission, acknowledging the urgency of the matter, in the financial year 2003/04 has granted NRTI tour PhD s in addition to the approved HRD plan of the gth Rve-Year-Plan. The proposed financial support for one PhD student al making immediate use of one of these s and helps kick-starting the ong-term endeavour of faculty upgrading at NRTI without delay.
The selection of the PhD candidates was based on a set of criteria, involving e.g. researcb priority areas, to ensure the relevance of the PhD projects to the Bhutanese context. Mr. Dhan Bahadur Gurung, lecturer of NRTI, was selected as one of the PhD candidates and, after availing a NIDECO fellowship, joined ETHZ for the preparaUve phase in April 2004.
The acquired research capacity of the candidate and the analysis and insight into a higbJy re issue in terms of policy developrnent, extension Services and sustainable income generation in rural areas will benef lt the NRTI, its students and in-service trainees of the Minis try of Agriculture, the po makers of RGoB, and last but not least the rural population.
The project management and related administrative tasks can be handled by existing struc tures of ETHZ, NRTI and SOC/Helvetas Coordination Office (COOF). No additional project structures are needed.
The overall budget of CHF 112900 includes all expenditures except those covered by the Roya! Government of Bhutan (salaries/DSA of research staff during fieldwork in Bhutan).
