Michael Gleich of the Culture Counts Foundation spent a number of weeks in Nepal uncovering answers to that question, on assignment from the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. From his arrival in Kathmandu onward, he was told that the German contribution to the peace process had been consistently lauded by both Nepalese and international observers, with particular praise for the way project employees continued their work throughout the war. Government representatives and Maoist functionaries alike stressed that the German position of strict neutrality in the conflict – although it initially alienated them – came to command tremendous respect. Gleich’s research findings will be published this fall in German, English, and Nepalese, with the overall aim of bundling and evaluating the agency’s experiential learnings in the areas of peace work.