English

The SAFE Justice Community Score Card process was a local adaptation of Community Score Card models used globally and in Nepal in other sectors. Its design was led by CARE Nepal, through a participatory process with DFID and IP-SSJ partners, and focused on GBV response services provided by the Nepal police and Judicial Committees. This report details the final reflections of CARE Nepal and partner project staff on how the process worked and what could be strengthened in future. It also provides a set of recommendations for the sustainability and institutionalization of the CSC in the justice sector.

The CSC models introduced within SAFE Justice and in Search for Common Ground’s Pahunch project (around the same time) were the first to be trialed in the justice sector in Nepal. The CSC model CARE has implemented through SAFE Justice was informed by CARE’s extensive global experience with CSCs, but is also heavily based on the outputs of a co-design workshop with CARE Nepal, Search for Common Ground Nepal, SAFE Justice partners, and DFID Nepal, in Kathmandu in August 2017.1 This local model was documented and set out in a bespoke manual (SAFE Justice Community Score Card: A Field Guide for Nepal),2 and that manual was then updated and re-issued based on findings from a review and adaptation process in 2018, and then again based on the final reflection process outlined in this report (in August 2019).3
Overall, the chosen sectoral focus of the justice sector, and in particular the application of the CSC model in the midst of Nepal’s transitioning subnational governance structure, was an ambitious choice within SAFE Justice. Despite this, the process has demonstrated strong positive results, particularly in terms of improved police-community relations and community awareness of, and connection to, the new Judicial Committees.
However, the context did necessitate a particularly flexible and adaptive approach, in order to shift the structures and stakeholders involved with the CSC, in step with major political changes. While the CSC was not set up as a formal ‘pilot’ per se, CARE tried to treat it as such, scheduling deliberate junctures to reflect on the functioning of the model, hear from frontline staff on what is working and what is challenging, making and documenting concrete adaptations along the way. Read More...