Dear Colleagues,

With great pleasure I welcome you all in the paper session entitled:
COMMUNITY LATRINE-CUM-BIOGAS PLANT  AT WARD NO. 1 OF
PATHARI VDC OF MORANG DISTRICT OF NEPAL. This paper is
produced by Prof. Dr. Amrit Bahadur Karki and Dr. Upendra Gautam.
At first, please allow me to introduce these two authors very briefly.

Prof. Dr. Karki did his PhD  in Soil Microbiology, Universite de Paris-Sud,
France in 1992. He has earned more than 30 years of work experience,
particularly  in the field of natural science, agriculture, biogas and
other renewable energy including the environmental sector. He had
worked as a Soil Scientist in the Department of Agriculture  (1962 - 1977),
as a Reader in Soil Science in Tribhuwan University (1977 - 1980) and
as an FAO Consultant in more than 20 countries of Asia, Africa and
Latin America in the field of Biogas and Organic Recycling (1980 - 1991).
He had been serving as a project coordinator for  a number of projects
on organic recycling, biogas, solar energy and alternate energy
sponsored by FAO, SNV, UNHCR, USAID etc. He has participated
in several national and international seminars on organic recycling
and  biogas technology. In the last six years he worked as Chief
Technical Adviser of CMS, a consultant firm in Nepal. He is the Professor
of Nepal Engineering College.

Dr.  Gautam, earned his Ph.D in Public Administration from Punjab
University, India. He has been serving for the past 24 years in the field
of social and institutional development. He started his carrier from a
lecturer (later Associate Professor) of rural development and institution
building. He has performed social and institutional  development activities
relating to agricultural and water projects in Nepal, the Philippines,
India, Guyana and  China. He also served as a Team Leader of several
multi-disciplinary teams in a number of agricultural, water and natural
resources development and management projects. He had undertaken social and
institutional analysis of Agricultural and Water Resources Development
Projects particularly especially from the stand point of socio-cultural
minieu, gender relations, social system, and relative stage of
socio-economic development. Through his pruden experience, he has been
supporting the respective government and financing agencies in devising
effective processes and system that promote participatory development in
natural resources management.

Having briefly introduced authors, I open the session and  would like to
invite you all to go through their paper and request you to contribute as
much as you can. Since these authors have earned lot of experience and
knowledge in several respects, it will be very nice to take the maximum
advantage on sharing their experience, knowledge and views. I therefore,
request you to contribute by making comments, suggestions, and asking
questions  based on their views expressed on their paper.

My co-chairperson is Ms Lylian Rodriguez, a Colombian who has been
working in integrated farming systems for a decade now,  initially in
CIPAV-Colombia and then in Vietnam where she did her M.Sc. She has been
living and working in Vietnam for the last six years. She is one of the
founder members of UTA (University of Tropical Agriculture Foundation)
and her main interest is in "Development of systems
suitable for poor farmers in the tropics",  " on farm
research-participatory development" and "Sustainable Education".  Lylian is
also the local leader of a participant group for this Internet Conference
and assisting more than 10 students in Cambodia to join the paper
discussions.

We jointly look forward to having a very lively presentation and
discussion.

Sincerely,

Punya Prasad Regmi
Chairman of the paper session
---
Punya Prasad Regmi, Ph.D.
Research Specialist I
School of Environment, Resources and Development
Asian Institute of Technology
PO box 4, Kong Luang 12120, Pathumthani, Thailand
Tel.: (66-2) 524 5615 and 524 5551 (office)        (66-2) 524 8156 (home)
Fax: (66-2) 524 5552
email: regmi@ait.ac.th