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Democracy means trusting people, respecting their views, and honoring their rights
-Kul Chandra Gautam
When UNDP started producing national human development reports, predictably, Nepal produced one of the first and among the best national HDRs.
If we could be half as effective in producing results, as we are in producing reports, the people of this country would indeed be very well served.
Our ability and agility in producing such reports indicates that Nepal has the latent capacity to rise to the occasion to prepare good programme proposals and attract donor interest and support.
I sense an enormous reservoir of goodwill towards Nepal in the international community. But I also sense a certain frustration with the endless political squabbling, rampant corruption and bureaucratic inertia in development administration.
The key obstacle for Nepal's development is therefore not the lack of resources or solidarity of the international community, but the need to keep our house in order in terms of good governance.
As we make progress in good governance, I have no doubt that adequate resources can be mobilized for essential investment.
Development is a complex business, and I do not want to offer any simplistic solutions or prescriptions for Nepal's advancement.
Pending the improvement of the security situation, resolution of the political crisis, improvements in good governance, and large-scale investment in physical infrastructure - all of which will take time, I would urge Nepal to concentrate and accelerate its efforts in the immediate future on 2 specific areas of development.
First, invest heavily in basic education.
I was surprised and distressed to learn that according to the analysis contained in the progress report on the MDGs, if current trends continue, Nepal is unlikely to reach the goal of universal access to, and completion of, primary education even by the year 2015.
I would urge that this ought to be one of the goals, which Nepal must aspire to achieve, against all odds.
Basic education, particularly of girls, is unquestionably a key to significant poverty reduction. It gives a young woman a sense of personal empowerment and self-confidence to make decisions that affect her life.
An educated girl tends to marry later, is more likely to space her pregnancies, will seek medical care for her child and herself when needed, will give better childcare and nutrition, and will ensure that her children attend primary school - all important factors in preventing the intergenerational transmission of poverty.
Education is also likely to enhance a woman's income-generating capacity and will embolden her to claim her rights and those of her children. There simply is no other investment with the broad range of positive multiplier effects as girls' education.
Chances of big time corruption are infinitely smaller at that level than in large-scale development projects involving contractors and commissions.
In proposing the doubling of such allocation, I would suggest that the additional funds be used to institute a system of incentives for villages to upgrade their infrastructure and basic social services with measurable indicators.
For example, one could institute a system of classification of all VDCs of Nepal into 3 or 4 categories based on some of the measurable indicators of the MDGs duly adapted to Nepal's reality. These could include percentage of girls enrolled in primary school or female literacy, access to clean drinking water, contraceptive prevalence, infant mortality rate, etc.
Encouraging a healthy competition among neighboring villages and districts to upgrade themselves from one category to the next using such indicators could greatly accelerate the pace of rural and national development. There are some good examples of such programmes in other countries, e.g. in Thailand and Indonesia that Nepal could learn from.
Using direct development grants to all VDCs to encourage them to promote goal-oriented, indicator-based development planning and implementation could be a very special way for Nepal to pursue the Millennium Development Goals.
This would also be a meaningful way in which relevant UN agencies and other donors could support Nepal's efforts to promote community-based, results-oriented development outcomes.
For far too long, a disproportionate amount of political power, the power of patronage and control of resources has remained in the hands of the elite in Kathmandu, other major towns and district headquarters. Let us be daring enough and trusting enough of our local communities and devolve more power and resources, in a planned manner to these communities.
Let us not be afraid that local communities might make mistakes, might waste some resources. Haven't we done that, big time, in Kathmandu and the district headquarters?
Democracy means trusting people, respecting their views, and honoring their rights. Let us build a strong democracy in Nepal from the villages upwards, by devolving more rights, responsibility and resources to our local communities.
The author is a high UN official. During his last visit to Kathmandu, the author made a presentation at a program organized by NCWA. Excerpts only have been printed. Ed.
Energy Policy: National and regional Implications-3
-Dr. Binayak Bhadra, Nepal
ENERGY INTENSIVE INDUSTRIES
The possibility exists to manufacture and export energy intensive goods, such as special steels, 'aluminum, calcium carbide, and a number of chemicals, such as, sodium hydroxide and sodium carbonate. The value additions from hydro-electricity in these industries far exceed the cost of electricity, so that these industries are highly profitable. More importantly, this allows Nepal to fully capture, the potential comparative advantage of cheap hydro-electricity, through value addition in industrial activities within the country. Needless to say, the multiplier effects will promote industrial growth as well as growth of other sectors, such as service sectors. This allows Nepal to move away from the situation of singular dependence on India for exports of hydropower. It should be clear that, export of "raw electricity" means that Nepal is exporting her "comparative advantage" to India; the multiplier effects also go to her, with no means to capture them again.
The energy intensive industry technologies such as those used in manufacture of high energy compounds (e.g. calcium carbide), high energy and high purity metals (e.g. aluminum, copper, zinc, magnesium, titanium) and alloys (alloy steels, electrically produced), fertilizers, paper and pulp are candidates for development and technology transfer. There should be a deliberate policy to promote these, and electricity supply to these industries should be at cost, so as to exploit the comparative advantage, Nepal has.
In forestry based industry, one can move towards the manufacturing processes (e.g. furniture wood, laminates, pulp etc.) although technology transfer efforts may be needed.
Natural products of high value which exploits the valuable "small products" of the forests such as the herbs, spices and the exotic plants is also important, specially as they may require fine control of the production process, which is possible through use of electricity (e.g. distillation for extraction). These fine control electrical and chemical processes can benefit the medicine and cosmetic sectors through better exploitation and management of the high bio-diversity areas in the country.
ELECTRIC TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS
Another example is the use of ropeways and trolley buses in local transport, to provide the necessary link to the markets for the inter-regional and local trade. In general, hydro-electricity may also be integrated with transportation sector, through electric battery vehicles, ropeways, trolley buses, trams, and electric trains. This will reduce the dependence on imported oil, and reduce the transportation costs considerably. The implication to the urban environment will be great, particularly, where there is severe congestion and over-crowding. The use of public transportation in urban areas such as, Kathmandu, can dramatically improve the city environment.
The most important physical characteristics of the hill and the mountain regions is inaccessibility, as it results from the rugged terrain and the complex river system. Thus inaccessibility results in lower productivity in agriculture, because of inputs constraints, which when coupled with population pressures leads to unsustainability. Therefore, priorities given to the development of hill and mountain roads are obvious, although the capital investments required for the roads are very high. The infrastructure development imperatives for' attainment of sustainable mountain agriculture has already been indicated elsewhere (B. Bajracharya,1992). The transport infrastructure opens up the area for transfer of modern technology (HYVs), new market openings, new opportunities for capital formations and human resource development.
Given the large investments and high repair and maintenance costs associated with roads transportation, and also the incidence of environmental problems associated with roads construction techniques presently prevalent in the country, it appears that alternative modes of transportation are more effective in terms of initial investment and maintenance. For example, it is noted that, roads have to, more or less, follow the contour lines between two towns in the hills. The length of the roads are about 8 or 9 times longer than a ropeway line between the two points separated by a fair distance. The advantage of the ropeway is that it can be powered by hydroelectricity, which is abundant in the hills and the mountains.
The hydel development can very well complement the development of electric road transportation, such as trolley buses, electric trains, and electric rope-way transportation. The later is more attractive for areas where roads are either uneconomical or undesirable (as in trekking and recreational areas). Thus there are a number of areas such as ropeways, electric trams and trolley buses, battery operated vehicles, electric batteries and a host of related technologies (such as tunneling and manufacturing of rock blasting materials), which may be beneficially transferred to Nepal. There has yet to be a clear analysis of technology transfer policy in this area, although it may be added that savings in terms of the foreign exchange of imported petroleum fuels (which will be replaced by electricity based transportation) alone would make it worthwhile for Nepal. Some research and development is also warranted in this area, particularly as it relates to down scaling of certain technologies, such as ropeways and tunnels, and of adapting modern technologies of manufacturing explosives for tunneling.
Use of electrically pump for transportation of water (irrigation) during the day and during the night during the off-peak times are beneficial, specially in the context of cash crop development through provision of irrigation water (e.g. sprinkler for cardamom growing in Ilam). The cost advantages are high, for already electrified areas, especially if one compares electric pump with the diesel/ kerosene type of installation. In remote areas, in the hills with large porter transportation, small and medium hydro are quite cost effective compared to diesel/kerosene pump sets in terms of operation and maintenance costs and also in terms of the initial outlays.
DIRECT ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS FROM HYDROELECTRICITY DEVELOPMENT
The assessment of direct environmental benefit from hydro development is necessary, because there is a number of "clean energy benefits"; that tends to be ignored when normal analyses of benefits are carried out. The major one is the benefits derived from reduction of green house gases and "carbon dioxide sequestration", in replacing the fossil fuels with hydropower. Similar benefits are obtained in reducing the NOX and other pollutants. These clean energy benefits are real at global and local levels, and must enter into the policy analysis exercise. Such assessments will favor hydro electricity in contrast to fossil fuel derived electricity.
Divergences in socio-economic and financial costs are also seen in the analysis of costs of hydroelectricity. For example, it has been indicated that, although the financial costs of electricity are real, when capacity utilizations are less than 100%, the socio-economic cost of electricity are nearly zero (with the exception of increased operation and maintenance cost). Thus there is a scope for subsidized electricity distribution, when under-utilization of installed capacity occurs.
Concluded. The editor thanks the author of this article and also the organizers of the seminar.
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