In the name of 'development'

Nepal Human Development Report 2009 (Subtitled: State Transformation and Human Development), UNDP, 2009

The good news is that poverty in Nepal decreased by 26 percent during 1995/96–2003/04. The bad news is that the decline in poverty varies a lot among different castes and ethnicity, as well as geographic regions of the country. For example, poverty among Muslims declined by 6 percent whereas among the “upper caste” Brahmin and Chhetris, there was a 46% decline.

Contrary to the expectations of this development worker, rather than elaborate on the programs, policies and factors that caused the decrease in poverty, the report focuses, near exclusively, on variations among different ethnicity, caste, gender, geography etc.

Similarly, the report does not even mention the words Millenium Development Goals. Nor does it spend any time to dwell on the food issues that are gripping the country, nor the sorry state of health service delivery, nor on ways to strengthen Nepali education system. Although the words “human development” appears everywhere in the 198 pages, there is absolutely no word on what programs and policies the country could pursue to ensure these three necessities (income, health, and education) that are the three pillars of human development.

Their silence on food issues is rather sad, given the prominence with which the food security and the impending food crisis has become a part of Nepali society. For instance, about 3 million are already said to have not enough to eat and the director of WFP in Nepal has claimed publicly that the country is on the brink of a famine.

Rather than offer concrete recommendations, the report indulges in political activism disguised as development concerns and pontifications on the fissures that erupted in Nepali politics. Variations based on gender, caste, rural/urban population and geography are dealt with in fine details but no mention is made of which poverty reduction policy and programme works (or worked to bring the very change touted by the report and which did not).

Even though the political beliefs of the authors of the report are shared widely in Nepal, including me, I doubt it is the role of UNDP to come out so directly in favor of certain ideologies, let alone state transformations.

Moreover, as the subtitle (state transformation and human development) suggests it places an overwhelming emphasis is on relative powers of different social groups in Nepal. The conclusion: The findings suggest that power relations have not changed significantly since the restoration of democracy in 1990. That is a patently false conclusion; a country can not go from a feudal monarchy to a federal republic without a change in power relations.

Most findings of discrimations in this report are not surprising to anyone who's a student of Nepali society. They are repeated ad nauseaum in NGO circles and the media as a kind of recycled, repackaged knowledge. Throughout the report I was looking for examples, recommendations and ideas on how to secure income, health services and education, ideas that can work or have worked in Nepal or elsewhere. Reading the report, it appears UNDP is not interested in any of that.