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Kathmandu Friday February 08, 2002 Magh 26, 2058.
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NDF meeting
Nepal’s economy is clearly at a crossroads
and not just because of the costly anti-Maoist clampdown. The problem is systemic and
involves the various concepts that have been stock in trade in the development drive.
Fifty years of foreign aid has left us feeling that we are on an economic treadmill that
leaves us in the same spot however hard we struggle. Foreign aid which used to take the
form of outright grants has mostly turned into loans that have to be repaid. Debt
repayment is eating up an increasing portion of the budget. The whole notion of foreign
aid has come in for questioning about its effectiveness and its tendency to foster aid
dependency. Aid money has been siphoned off through outright corruption, a phenomenon
which has sapped the vitality of our developmental effort and traduced our public life.
Economic planning has not brought the sea change that earlier periodic plans seemed to
promise. Now, towards the end of the Ninth Plan, the great goals set out have turned out
to be rather elusive. Economic liberalisation and privatisation, carried out over the past
decade under pressure from aid donors, have not brought the wonders they portended. More
money and know-how has gone into agriculture than anywhere else, and we have only turned
from a net exporter of foodgrain into a net importer. Promising sectors and sub-sectors
like tourism, carpets and pashmina are folding up one after another. Hydroelectricity
development has yet to make strides. In sum, the economy has simply failed to take off.
Much of the problem has been demographic of course, even Malthusian, and a whole
generation of our youth is now hazarding the vagaries of foreign employment to make ends
meet. On top of all this have come political instability, the Maoist insurgency and
failure to make the political system work.
It is against this somber background that for
the first time the Nepal Development Forum, previously known as Aid Nepal Group, has met
in this country instead of in distant Paris. The idea was to give the various players at
this end a chance to make an input into the deliberations. Those deliberations have so far
come out with two distinct signals. One is that, yes, Nepal will continue to get financial
assistance for budgetary requirements and long term development projects. That’s the
good news. Nepal’s leaders have over the decades become adept at charming foreign
partners into underwriting our hopes and follies. Perhaps this time has been no exception.
There was also genuine appreciation in the donor community for Nepal’s current
security exigencies. That community can be counted upon to, by and large, live up to its
commitment. The other news is that Nepal was treated to a stiff lecture on good
governance, rampant corruption, non-implementation of development projects, outsized
cabinet and sundry other sins. World Bank Vice President Dr Mieko Nishimizu went so far as
to say that the NDF meeting was not about levels of aid commitment at all but about how we
run our affairs. This message may have come across loud and clear because the NDF meeting
is taking place right in our midst for once. But there is no mistaking the seriousness of
the injunctions. The big question now is, will we be able to deliver and manage our
affairs with greater probity and competence? Will we be able to report by the time of the
next NDF meetings that progress has been made on this score? We may not necessarily be
given a second chance. |
