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NEPAL: On The Road to Failed State?

Marty Logan

KATHMANDU, Oct 6 2005 (IPS) - When does a conflict become a crisis? In Nepal’s case it could be very soon, says the United Nations.

On Friday, the world body will appeal to the global community for 65 million US dollars in humanitarian aid for the war-weary nation. That will put Nepal, 10 years into a Maoist uprising that has killed 12,000 people, in the same boat as Chechnya, the Occupied Palestine Territories and 12 African nations, all named in the U.N.’s Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP) for 2005.

The decision is a controversial one. While it could raise sorely needed funds, it might also label the country a ‘failed state’. A related worry is that since most CAPs do not achieve their target, it could also mean “crying wolf” – if the appeal were to fall short in its inaugural year what are the chances that a subsequent one would be met?

But the biggest concern among government officials and some donor agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) is that appealing for humanitarian aid will divert cash that would have funded projects dedicated to the long-term development of one of Asia’s poorest countries.

”Are we really at that critical junction where we are not able to cope with these things within the framework of our own PRSP (Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper) document?” asks Bidhyadhar Mallik, secretary in the Nepal government’s Peace Secretariat.

PRSPs are prepared by governments that receive aid from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). They outline a country’s plans to reduce poverty and introduce financial reforms, but have been harshly criticised for making poor nations adhere to policies that put profit before people.

”The major difference (with the CAP) is that the PRSP has a broader focus on the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) and our commitment to the population. It does include emergency humanitarian assistance but it is integrated into a wider framework,” added Mallik in an interview.

Last month, the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) released a review of Nepal’s progress toward meeting the MDGs, a series of international goals to raise the basic living standards of the world’s people by 2015.

The report said Nepal has a good chance of hitting most of the targets, including halving the number of people who live below the poverty line and cutting the death rate of children under five by two-thirds.

But while Nepal in 2002 graduated to being classified a country of ”medium” development, that progress has been limited by many constraints, the MDG report said. These include: rugged terrain and inadequate infrastructure, high transport and investment costs, weak governance and high population growth.

Today, about four out of 10 Nepalis live on less than a dollar a day, many of them in far-flung villages accessible only after days of walking. Maoists are an open presence in almost all the country’s 75 districts, outside of towns and cities.

The rebels force locals to ‘donate’ money and food to their cause, kidnap hundreds of schoolchildren at a time for indoctrination sessions and enforce road blockades for weeks together. On the other side, security forces harshly punish villagers who have contact with Maoists and detain suspects without charge for weeks or months, without releasing information.

As many as 200,000 villagers have been forced to flee the conflict to heavily-guarded district headquarters towns, the capital Kathmandu or across the border to neighbour India.

”Intensifying violence and political instability have been hampering the effective utilisation of aid,” said the MDG report. “Restoring peace and democracy in the country, therefore, is of utmost priority to put development efforts back on track.”

”There is not a stereotypical humanitarian crisis in Nepal at the present moment,” says U.N. Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Matthew Kahane. “But the country is a very poor one and much of the population lives pretty well hand to mouth.”

“Add nine years of civil strife and the human rights crisis and the fact that the government has clearly drawn attention to the problems of IDPs (internally displaced people) and you have good grounds for a CAP,” he told IPS.

Kahane calls the appeal ”contingency planning for humanitarian needs in case an emergency arises. We hope it doesn’t. None of us is looking for a humanitarian crisis. But neither do we think it’s prudent to sit back and say there won’t be one”.

The CAP totals 64.5 million US dollars, requested by more than two-dozen UN agencies and international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) to implement 60 projects in these areas: human rights protection, refugee support, expansion of basic services, natural disaster risk management and coordination.

Setting up and running the CAP will cost only four to five percent of the money pledged, said Kahane, adding that almost all of the work will be run through existing aid channels.

An official at one INGO said his organisation agreed to participate in the CAP precisely to ensure that the current system of delivering development aid to rural communities via Nepali NGOs would not be bypassed.

”In the midst of a humanitarian crisis, there’s still a much larger development crisis that Nepal faces,” said Keith Leslie, country director of Save the Children (U.S.). But progress is being made, particularly at district and local levels, he added.

”We were just out in east Nepal with colleagues from USAID (the U.S. Agency for International Development) who come from Washington and are concerned about this being a ‘failing state’.”

”They could see the government district health staff with community leaders, including Dalits (so-called untouchables) janajatis (indigenous people) women and other disadvantaged people, planning the handover of services.”

”They were voting on what the community’s health priorities should be – and these were illiterate Dalit women,” added Leslie.

Canada’s Jean-Marc Mangin told IPS that how to deliver development activities in the midst of the conflict remains a ‘burning issue’ between many donors and the government. But any money that Canada pledges to the CAP will be new funds, not diverted from current projects, he added.

”We want to protect people’s livelihoods so they don’t have to move to stop a bad situation from getting worse,” said Mangin, representative of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

But unlike Canada, says Mallik, many donors ”say that they don’t have two separate categories of money available. They have to pay from the same pocket. That is very much a concern for us.”

”Our development plans have been discussed with donors and are part of a long-term strategy for us to come out of the poverty trap,” he added. ”If one sort of money replaces that well-planned expenditure framework then it could confuse more than it helps.”