Nepal's Failed Development- Reflections on the Mission and the Maladies

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About the Book Ten years ago, this author wrote "[Development] has failed not only because we did not achieve what we set out to do. It has failed also, and more importantly, because the idea and agents of development themselves may have been corrupted in the process." The current situation is the same; will the future be different? It can be if the people, especially the power holders do not allow the pathology of emphasizing "word" for the "world", the family for the country and the party for the universe to take root in the Republic of Nepal. At least, the youth or the new generation of political and social workers must be saved so that they can fight the decay, disillusion and possible regression with renewed vigour and new values. The future belongs to the youth; they only have to claim and own it.

About the Author Devendra Raj Panday has a Ph.D in Public and International Affairs from the University of Pittsburgh, USA. He is best known for his civic activism and scholarly work in support of democracy and people-centered development. He was associated with Transparency International, has been President of its Nepal Chapter, and elected twice as a Member of the International Board of Directors in Berlin. He served as a finance secretary in the government of Nepal, and also as finance minister in Krishna Prasad Bhattarai government in 1990-91. Dr. Panday has published numerous books and articles on development, democracy, corruption, including his latest, The Idea of Integrity:

The Universe of Corruption and Anticorruption, and on the role of foreign aid in the country's social, economic and political development.

Foreword It is a testimony to Devendra Raj Panday's erudition, critical reflections, and deep insights that even after over twenty years of its first publication in 1999 Nepal's Failed Development reads like a thoughtful contemporary commentary on Nepal's development malaise and challenges. Some new jargons may have entered the development debate in the interim but the problematic and the issues at heart remain the same sluggish rates of economic growth, unproductive agriculture, moribund manufacturing sector, unsustainable trade imbalance, pervasive poverty in relative terms (changing definitions notwithstanding), dubious outcomes in basic education and health, persistent biases by gender, ethnicity, language, region fed by a thriving dualistic social structure and patronized by an entrenched patriarchal order, persistent, entrenched and all-pervading corruption, the continuing dilemma of, and dependence on, foreign aid, and above all, a nation that continues to witness the erosion of its sense of national pride and self-esteem amidst political developments orchestrated by politicians, nudged often by alien strategists, that continue to put their petty interests over that of the nation. Nepal's Failed Development feels the developmental pulse of contemporary Nepal in its varied dimensions (human, economic, political/historical, external etc.) before making the final diagnosis, that unless remedial measures are undertaken the 'patient' is bound to deteriorate.

The book covers a very wide thematic, conceptual, and empirical canvas. The beauty of the book lies in the fact the author does not labor to prove a point. His reasonings flow almost effortlessly.

Preface Friends including scholars and publishers have been coaxing me for a new edition of Nepal's Failed Development for a while now. The book has been out of print for many years and was well-received ten years ago when it initially came out. If many readers including serious students and practitioners of development in and outside the country found some value in the book, I have a nagging suspicion that some others in the country did not look beyond its title page and conveniently found the book "very negative". For some people it was as if the verdict of failed development threatened their very sustenance, physical and professional. Indeed, what will the serious members of the "development set" do for their living and life-style if development is perceived to have failed already?

In the late 1990s, it was already becoming fashionable for the chattering classes to constantly chatter about Nepal degenerating into a "failed state". It is, therefore, strange that for the same section of the society, the notion of failed development would be incomprehensible even as a subject for intellectual conversation. It is another matter that the truly negative and utterly painful proceeding one was witness to at the time was the lacklustre bureaucratic routine carried out by the self serving establishment in the name of development. It also did not seem to matter that this intractable condition was accompanied, eventually, by a more painful and depressing tragedy. The losses and dislocations of precious life and property arising from the "People's War" launched by the Maoists kept mounting. And, militarization of the state proceeded hand in hand with it, further draining the meagre pubic resources that could be used for development purposes. The image of the pristine and peaceful, if poor, Nepal was replaced by the reality of a bloodletting, conflict-ridden state on the brink of collapse a characterization applied to some of our sister countries in sub-Saharan Africa. It was not apparent that the establishment with its changing actors and unchanging interests noticed any of this.

**Contents and Sample Pages**