Book Review (Spotlight Weekly)

On Service Delivery

The book assesses alternative institutional arrangements with a focus on the hills and mountains

By A CORRESPONDENT

Till four decades back, country's rugged mountains were often blamed for the failure of country's overall development and backwardness. The planners and implementers used to blame the rugged terrain for disrupting the service delivery efforts. Recent studies and assessment has shown that Nepal's mountains and hills can turn into a cash cow for Nepal in terms of the immense potentials they hold.

With over 50 percent of Nepal's total population living there, hills and mountains occupy important regions for Nepal's economic development. Backward by the remoteness and lack of infrastructures, the population living in these regions have very little opportunities. Based on subsistence economy, the lives of mountain people are difficult, to say the least.

In this context the book makes an attempt to truly analyze the potentials and ways to reap them for the good of people at large. The book is based on study of the region.

Funded by International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), the study conducted by SAPPROS-Nepal on the rural hill potentials and service delivery systems is a first of its kind, which helps to understand challenges and opportunities facing the country.

"Hills and mountains of Nepal are like a milching cow in terms of its immense potential. They have been ignored in the past," said Hari Shankar Tripathi, former member of National Planning Commission. "This study analyzes past mistakes - where did we go wrong, and it has rightly concluded that it is the institutions which were erroneous."

Nepal's hills and mountains comprise 77 percent of the geographical area of the country. However, only 16 percent of the land is cultivated, leading to high population density per hectare of cultivated area. Thanks to the remoteness and lack of infrastructures, the potential of the hills and mountains were far from being tapped.

Although the country has made certain progress in these regions through the expansion of off-season vegetable farming, the institutions are yet to develop to meet the demand.

Nepal is largely a hilly and mountainous country with 77 percent of the land resources of the country located in these ecological regions. The altitude ranges from 300 m to as high as the highest point on earth (8848). The mountain region, with higher elevations, borders the Tibetan plateau in the north.

The objective of this study is to analyze the potentials and threats to the development of the rural hills and mountains of Nepal as well as analyze the experiences in rural development investments to make recommendations on appropriate institutional arrangements for the future building on recent decentralization efforts of HMGN.

The major outputs of this study are the field cases under different institutional arrangements and in different settings. These cases were initially identified through desk study whereas follow-up information were collected through field interviews and site visits.

"Despite various topographical challenges, some districts and some pockets in the hills and mountains have fared remarkably well in terms of their overall socio-economic development. This means that the true worth of the hills and mountains is far greater than what the policy makers and even the local residents seem to believe. The observation reveal that the Hills and Mountains of Nepal have enormous natural potential in terms of production of high value crops, off season vegetables, tourist attractions etc," writes the report. In fact, the hills and mountains need not remain as poor as they are provided their access, appropriate technology and entrepreneurship is developed.