The Toni Hagen Foundation has been set up in honour of the Swiss geologist and development philosopher who is marking the 50th year of his arrival in Nepal. Over the course of the 1950s and ‚60s, first as a Swiss development official and later as a United Nations expert, Toni Hagen trekked through a largely uncharted country, and introduced it to the world. Going beyond his own professional discipline, Hagen wrote about the history, people, landscape and economy of what till then was still a largely „forbidden“ kingdom.

Over the decades, as he became deeply involved in the study and practice of development in Asia and elsewhere, Hagen emerged as an acute observer and sympathetic critic of the process of modernisation and change in Nepal. Today, a sprightly 83, Prof.Hagen is appreciated by his Nepali friends for his strongly-held beliefs on the need for socio-economic advance through genuine democracy, through decentralisation, appropriate use of technology, and the underlying requirement of quality education.

As the person who introduced the geographical features of Nepal not only to the world but also to Nepalis ( as vouched for by the late Prime Minister B.P.Koirala himself), Toni Hagen has always sought to enhance the Nepalis’ understanding of the physical, ethnographic, economic and other aspects of their country. His belief has been that this country of 23 million ( there were only 9 million when he arrived in 1950) can advance only when the country’s geophysical and demographic diversitiy is fully understood by the inhabitants. Only then will Nepalis truly begin to take advantage of the economic potential of their country.

The Toni Hagen Foundation, keeping in view the career and ethos of its namesake, will have one overarching goal: to promote the understanding of Himalayan geography among the people of the Himalaya, particularly the young. Geography, in thie sense, is understood as a broad discipline including physical geography, economy, ethnography, culture and related areas. The Himalayas, in the definition of the Foundation, includes both the adjacent Terai plains to the south as well as sections of the Tibetan plateau in the North.

The Foundation will support all kinds of publications, productions and activities to enhance the knowledge base of the Himalayan region among the targeted younger generation.

These publications and productions willinclude, for example, works on the physical geography of the Himalaya, studies ofrivers, as well as historically informed analysis of environmental practices in the hills and plains of Nepal. Given Prof Hagen’s long-standing stress on a better understanding of Nepal’s diverse demographic structure, the Foundation will seek to promote spread of knowledge about the various cultural strands that make up the country that is Nepal.

An important focus of the Foundation’s output will be to provide graded output which will be useful for the youngest children on the one hand and college students and above to the others.

The very first activity for the Foundation was the edition in Nepali translation Toni Hagen’s classic Nepal: The Kingdom in the Himalaya. Prof. Hagen has been kind enough to donate his royalties from the 4th (English) edition of the book for the translation project.

Among the other projects was a college-level course book on Himalayan geography. A thoroughly researched work published in English

The inauguratin of the Toni Hagen Foundation has been on 18th Mai 2001

With
Dr. Novel K. Rai, President
Kanak Mani Dixit
Deepak Thapa,Secretary
Basanta Thapa
Ambica Shresta
Harka Gurung
Laxman Shresta
Mohan Man Sainju
Shyam Bahadur Pandey

The Toni Hagen Foundation is a non-profit entity being run indepently under the registration umbrella of Himal Association, the organisation which has been active in the dissemination of knowledge and information about the Himalaya since 1987. The overall policy formulation and philosophical orientation of the Foundation will be set by Board of an Executive Committee made up of the following trustees:

Prof Novel Kishor Rai, former Ambassador of Nepal in Germany
Deepak Thapa journalist and book editor
Basantha Thapa,executive director of Himal Association
Kanak Mani Dixit, editor of Himal Magazine.