There are growing signs that foreign aid is increasingly contested on the grounds of sovereignty and nationalism in Nepal. The purported universality of external assistance in the name of development, human rights and the "we are here to help" approaches of aid agencies are increasingly colliding with sovereignty-based nationalistic discourses. In addition to long-standing criticisms of aid agencies in Nepal's public sphere, more recent attempts by the Nepali state to regulate external assistance in the aftermath of the April 2015 earthquake could have a significant impact.Contentious legacy
Instrumental use of external assistance in political, economic and strategic agendas and its role in consolidating or overthrowing regimes is nothing new.
The United States was the first country to offer aid to Nepal in 1951. The mission of the initial American aid was to counter the threat of communism and the belief that India was not equipped to counter potential Chinese aggression. India and China then competed in Nepal by providing significant aid in strategic sectors, such as road building and airport construction. British aid was concentrated in Gurkha recruitment areas, both as a form of compensation, but also as a strategy to silence potential discontent amongst its recruits on issues of unfair compensation.
Early development aid to Nepal focused on physical infrastructure projects ranging from roads, airports, factories, agriculture, education and health care, among others. Given Nepal's geo-political importance, the Panchayat rulers encouraged competition amongst donors as a way of getting more aid. The rhetoric of rural development, basic needs and poverty alleviation became the mantra for further consolidation of the regime. Every facet of development financed by external assistance soon came to be seen as institutionally and symbolically strengthening the patronage system of the Panchayat.
Despite this legacy, foreign aid did have real effects on the well being of people. Some form of external assistance no doubt contributed to increasing literacy and had an ideological impact in introducing people to the language of 'rights' and 'awareness'. Significant improvements were made in areas of family planning, population control, malaria, maternal and child health, education, road networks, among others. Unequal outcomes were never really a concern for the aid community. The long-standing issues of inequality, distributive justice and inclusive governance in Nepal were unperceived and thus unchallenged by the aid community.
Until 1990, the criticism of foreign aid in Nepal was limited to small groups of left intellectuals with limited clout.
Start of discontent
Coinciding with the neo-liberal shift in global aid priorities, the fall of the Panchayat regime and the restoration of multiparty democracy in 1990 changed the face of foreign aid in Nepal. The donors began to provide assistance to projects aimed at strengthening civil society, good governance and human rights.
The institutional shift supported government through technical assistance and 'on-budget projects,' but also included significant support through 'off-budget' projects focusing on advocacy and lobbying through civil society, professional groups, private consultancies, NGOs and INGOs. The old patronage networks expanded to include a newly emerging ambitious professional class that included professionals and social activists working in NGOs, INGOs, professional organizations, political parties, media, consultancies, grassroots organizations and user groups. CPN-UML, which earlier was critical of foreign aid from 'imperialistic' countries, started building its patronage through a network of NGOs.
While these shifts were presented as a means to strengthen the state in the liberal sense, they had a paradoxical effect, in that they challenged the already weak state, popular democracy and sovereignty. Donor-funded technical assistance advisors and short-term contractors increasingly influenced government policies through their direct access to high level officials, convening of coordination meetings, running annual review meetings and drafting policy documents. One of the telling examples of this was the development of technical assistance enclaves in different ministries and departments, for example the establishment of the office of Nepal Health Sector Support Programme (NHSSP) within the Ministry of Health.
This practice had a demoralizing effect on civil servants who were represented in the aid community as inefficient, ineffective and embedded in patronage systems. While civil servants and the government system were being reformed, Chakari or aafno manche was very much integral to how donors funded their projects as well. So neither were donors able to reform the system nor were they accountable to the people or the government. This emergent modality created a bittersweet relationship by which the government could not do without foreign aid, but could not do with it either. This perception has led to the Nepali government's increasing desire to manage external assistance but with little success.
Donor complicity
Despite a long history of working in Nepal, donors were complicit in not framing their assistance around inequality and structural violence in Nepali society and politics. The Maoist rhetoric, which aimed to dismantle Nepal's feudal legacy and long-standing inequalities with profound social transformation, was a major eye-opener for the aid community.
Initially, the aid community active in Nepal was reluctant to define the situation as conflict-related humanitarian emergency, as this would have contradicted the government's portrayal of it as a law-and-order problem. The donors also feared this would imply an implicit recognition of the Maoists as a legitimate interlocutor with whom humanitarian issues needed to be discussed.
The donors began a soul-searching exercise in the context of Nepal's rapidly deteriorating conflict. There was slow recognition that the grievances caused by widespread inequalities and repressive tactics used by the state had contributed to support for Maoists. While few influential donors did use the post-9/11 security lens to address the emerging conflict, overall, donors played an important role in documentation of human rights violations and helped internationalize Nepal's political conflict. They began to fund activities to map Nepal's inequalities. With the changing political equation within Nepal after the royal coup, donors provided considerable support to Janaandolan II, which resulted in a regime change.
The aid community supported the peace process and political settlement with a vision for a democratic, inclusive, secular and federal republic of Nepal. However, this process excluded those who supported monarchy and Hinduism. While donor-supported UNMIN continued to portray its mission as successful, its political and social analysis came under increasing scrutiny.
In the context of no elections at national and local levels, the influence of donor-supported activities in shaping public debate was profound and offered a linear and populist analysis of Nepal's complex state-society relations, without much deliberation at the local level. As the political interregnum continues, earlier gains of secularism and federalism are increasingly contested. New political coalitions and alliances have evolved, challenging the recent regime change and political settlement support by the donor community.
Nepal's bitter political history of foreign aid and emerging criticisms of donors mean that aid agencies can no longer work without considering how their work is being perceived and discussed in the public sphere. Although there appears to be a desire on the part of the state to check and manage external assistance—as evident in its Development Cooperation Policy of 2014 or the rhetoric around 'one door policy' in the aftermath of the earthquakes—it has limited capacity to carry out such a policy.
Those who benefit from foreign aid and its patronage, both directly and indirectly, will have an incentive to continue with the status quo. But the threat to humanitarian space in Nepal is real. There is a large section of Nepalis who desperately need humanitarian assistance.
The author teaches South Asia and International Development at the School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh
Related story
Making space for history
