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Development, Poor And Poverty An Analysis

By C. D. Bhatta

THE debate on development, poor and poverty is immense and has become a catchword in a contemporary world. Spanning from the corridors of the academic institutions to the ballrooms of the five star deluxe hotels, it has become a main topic of discussion. Development 'to reduce world poverty and thereby brining significant changes on the socio-economic conditions of the poor' has become a main mantra for development gurus and policy analysts and an issue to deliver speeches for the political leaders. In another way, it can be termed as religion - a way of life for these people in today's materialistic world. Politicians, businessmen, human rights activists and academicians speak about development and poverty alleviation all the time ceaselessly. But in reality, the poverty remains intact and untouched ever vulnerable.

Who is not aware that less than 1.2 billion people live on less than a dollar a day? The English daily, The Guardian in its recent report states that nearly 60 million children in the developing world will die needlessly over the next 15 years unless rich countries start to deliver on their promises to increase in international aid spending. The Oxfam, a leading British development NGO, said that the world's richest countries needed to provide an extra US$ 100bn a year - three times more than the current level of assistance - to ensure that the targets of halving world poverty, putting every child into school and reducing infant mortality by two thirds. Otherwise, the ambitious target of reducing world poverty by 2015 will just become rhetoric rather than reality. It further states that, rich countrys' failure to meet the UN target of spending 0.7 per cent of national income on aid will result in millions of child deaths. While analysing on the current global economic recession and political instability it gives very little hope and cause for optimism of increased international aid since several major donors are cutting aid citing these reasons. At this outset, what can be said is that if the poor or less developed countries in the world failed to utilise their own resources properly, it is almost certain that the 'religion of development' will come to a standstill.

Paradoxically, in a world committed to universal democracy, human rights and freedom, it should perhaps come as a surprise that the voice of the majority of the people in the world remains unheard. Those who speak about reducing poverty and thereby providing a sigh of relief to the poor are most of the time unfaithful to their commitment worldwide. The politics in every country in the world means struggle for power between the privileged classes, that is, those who were already in power and those who would like to be in the helm of power. Poor are just marginalised and are being used by the so called self appointed champions of the poor as and when opportunity arises

Although, extreme poverty has diminished, where it was quantitatively greatest such as in Asia - many hundreds of millions of people have begun to achieve secure existence. A modest degree of affluence credit of this goes to the good governance and committed political leadership in these countries and also to the flow of ideas and news from the other side of the developed world which is the spill over effect of globalisation and advancement achieved in the filed of information technology. But in totality, the bridge of inequality between the poor and rich is increasing.

While discussing on the politics of development in Nepal, it dates back to 1950s when it came to Nepal with messianic fervour since it opened itself to the outside world in 1951. Nepal has been a recipient of foreign assistance since then which was directed towards different sectors such as education, health, developing agriculture, transportation infrastructure, and power generation, communications and industry. Until mid-1960s, Nepal depended mostly, if not totally, on foreign grants for all its development projects. There are many international agencies/bodies providing aid to Nepal some in the form of grants some in the form of loan. Such as UN specialised agencies, multilateral lending agencies such as the World Bank/IMF, Asian Development Bank, private agencies for example Ford Foundation, several other international non-governmental organisations and other donor countries offered bilateral assistance.

Under the auspices of World Bank, the Nepal Aid Group was created in 1976 for the development of Nepal and this Aid Group meets in an interval of two years to discuss as how best Nepal can be helped for the overall development of the country thereby reducing the poverty. However, despite all these, 'BIKAS' and poverty remains un-tackled in their true spirit. Nepal has been classified as one of the poorest nations in the world ranking second only to Sierra Leone. More than half of the nation's population live below the poverty line. There has been little achievement in rural development in the country. And with limited investment in the health sector, a large proportion of the population does not have access to health services. The government of Nepal has placed development and eradication of poverty on its priorities since 1950s but there has been a lacklustre and disdain. Why we are not moving a head? Why does it take twenty years time to construct 100 kilometres of road despite pouring in of foreign aid?

The virtual reason to, our dismay, is that those who know better and make policy by virtue of their presence in the government and other high ranking offices of the government are in the business of making money, money which does not come from nowhere, does not fall out of the skies, but is being churned out of the national resources for their personal benefit.

This is the dilemma of development and poverty in Nepal. In the past 12 years of democracy, Nepal has seen many governments and uncountable number of ministers but the weak governments coalitions and their strong engagement in corruption have helped to foster political instability. The frequent changes in the government have had more to do with power-mongering and financial gain than with the national interest. Lacking a clear vision of national unified development and the governments failed to deliver on health, education, poverty reduction and water-resource development as expected by the people. The basic analysis is that people are held back from fulfilling their true potential by economic failure poor education, poverty, prejudice and discrimination pushing country on the verge of total economic collapse and political instability. Tourism is almost dead, and the country hovers on the brink of a protracted civil war with the Maoist insurgents.

Ambitions Step

In order to come out of these problems, our policies should be directed in their truest spirit towards building a nation, that is, a modern, tolerant, outward looking Nepal where power wealth and opportunity are in the hands of many not one. To some extent, the recent initiative taken by the present government to combat corruption, a root cause of the all problems and downside of Nepal, is a milestone on its own. If such an ambitious step is implemented honestly, definitely, Nepal can witness the real development, which will herald a new era in our society.

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