Nepali Development: A View from the North

By Tatsuro Fujikura


No one has a clear view of all development enterprises in Nepal, much less control over the outcomes - not HMG, GOI, the World Bank nor any other major player. Overviews habitually decry a lack of 'reliable data', precluding determinate conclusions. Hence they are best read not as precise descriptions of sociopolitical realities, but - as literary critic Kenneth Burke recommended in another context - as creative works utilizing various rhetorical and logical strategies to name outstanding features of the situation, and "name them in a way that contains an attitude towards them." Such works, of course, often have substantial effects on the generation of new realities.

In 1996, anticipating substantial expansion of its aid to Nepal, the Norwegian Foreign Ministry commissioned a study, Development Aid to Nepal: A Summary of Experience, from the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS). The book under review is "largely the same" as that report. Thus it can profitably be read as an indicator of likely directions for an increasingly significant donor, and for insights into the process of molding a foreign policy towards Nepali development. Though author Skar has substantial research experience in Nepal, given the impact of donor country policies, it is disheartening to learn that the study is based on "two researcher-months" and "eight days of hectic data collection in Nepal".

The book examines the energy, human rights, education, and health sectors. Its most forceful argument concerns energy development where it should, "always be a top priority for Norwegian inputs to support Nepalese competence building. This is the ultimate test against which all project proposals should be judged". Energy sector projects, from 1958 onward, by private Norwegians and the United Mission to Nepal (UMN) are assessed as "fairly successful" - among the most positive evaluations in the entire book. UMN-sponsored companies, engaged in small to mid-sized projects, serve as a model for accomplishing hydropower development while also transferring know-how "so that [Nepalis] can become less dependent on foreign assistance for future projects". Accordingly, the authors recommend Norwegian assistance for small, mid-sized, and micro hydropower projects, while dismissing large-scale ones as almost inevitably involving dominance of foreign expertise and capital, and technical, economic, and political uncertainties that might seriously undermine energy development in Nepal.

The authors suggest more tentative engagements in other sectors. Discussing human rights, they write that "Nepal's legal system is renowned for being highly corrupt and a hindrance rather than help in the life of ordinary Nepali citizens". They recommend support for local human rights NGOs, joining in the efforts by DANIDA and USAID on electoral issues, and support for "the peaceful understanding of ethnic diversity" (e.g., the Ethnographic Museum). Regarding education, the authors state it would be "prudent" for Norway to invest in the Basic Primary Education Project, regarded by many donors as a model', and where, accordingly, many donors have flocked. However, they also suggest that vocational training within high schools "may become an interesting and important development arena". Turning to health, the Ministry of Health (MOH) is described as "the most bureaucratic and inefficient ministry of all the 47 ministries in Nepal". Hence, rather than investing in MOH, the authors suggest direct financing of short-term projects through consultancy firms or networks established by UMN or Redd Barna. Arguing that sufficient trained rural health personnel, rather than simply more health posts, is the critical need, they recommend a separate study of possibilities for Norwegian-funded health personnel training.

Readers can benefit from clear presentations throughout of bureaucratic structures related to development projects and their funding sources. However, the authors also make many simplistic, and sometimes illogical statements on sociocultural matters, such as caste and ethnicity. For example, the fact that during the period of their research, the Minister of Law and Justice was a Tamang - whom, the authors explain, have low status in the caste hierarchy - is presented as evidence that human rights are accorded very little importance in Nepal. More generally, quoting heavily from the donors' side, the book creates a picture of rational, conscientious donors (from DANIDA to World Bank) struggling in the face of the irrational Nepali, beset by primordial sentiments and practices of aphno manchhe and chakari. This imaginative description of key players "that contains an attitude toward them", leaves no room for sustained analysis of how foreign aid practices themselves may have been transforming the Nepali sociocultural structure at a very deep level. Such analysis, in turn, may be essential if, as the authors of this book profess to believe, the ultimate test for "good" foreign aid is whether it helps to render foreign aid unnecessary.