JUNE 2009 Strengthening the humanity and dignity of people in crisis through knowledge and practice Aid and Violence: Development Policies and Conflict in Nepal A Background Report by Francesca Bonino and Antonio Donini ©2009 Feinstein International Center. All Rights Reserved. Fair use of this copyrighted material includes its use for non-commercial educational purposes, such as teaching, scholarship, research, criticism, commentary, and news reporting. Unless otherwise noted, those who wish to reproduce text and image files from this publication for such uses may do so without the Feinstein International Center’s express permission. However, all commercial use of this material and/or reproduction that alters its meaning or intent, without the express permission of the Feinstein International Center, is prohibited. Feinstein International Center Tufts University 200 Boston Ave., Suite 4800 Medford, MA 02155 USA tel: +1 617.627.3423 fax: +1 617.627.3428 fic.tufts.edu Cover image: Workers on a mule trail renovation project, James Gambrione, WFP contents Aid and Violence: Development Policies and Conflict in Nepal A Background Report by Francesca Bonino and Antonio Donini1 Acknowledgments ........................................................................ 4 Acronyms ................................................................................. 4 Introduction ................................................................................... 5 1. Patterns of Poverty, Inequalities, and “Structural Violence” in Nepal ............ 7 …and the Links to the Conflict .......................................................... 9 2. Foreign Aid Actors and the Development Enterprise in Nepal: Key Arguments .....................................................12 Political Change and Aid Change ........................................................12 Changing Priorities and Modalities of Aid ..............................................14 Ideological Impact of Aid ................................................................15 3. Denial and Adaptation ....................................................................17 Maoists’ Views on Society and Development: Rhetoric and Reality ...................17 Government’s Understanding of the Conflict and Its Causes ...........................19 Aid Actors’ Understanding of the Conflict and Adaptation .............................20 4. Aid and Conflict: Competing Narratives ..............................................25 (i) The “Failed Development” Narrative .................................................25 (ii) The Narrative of Denial ..............................................................27 (iii) Alternative Accounts: The Development Success Narrative ........................28 Annex ..........................................................................................31 Maoists’ “40-Points Demand” (February 1996) ..........................................31 References .....................................................................................32 About the Authors ........................................................................35 1 Feinstein International Center, Tufts Unversity. Please send any comments to [email protected]. Acknowledgments Many thanks to Wendy Cue and Greg Grimsich of the UN-OCHA Kathmandu office for their advice and generous assistance. Jeevan Raj Sharma was a constant source of insights. Both he and Liz Mandeville provided comments and welcome editing support on earlier drafts of this paper. Sincere thanks also go to Line Urban and Gopal Ojha for their support during the stay in Kathmandu, and to Sudhindra Sharma for his valuable insights and interest in this research. Thanks also to Liz Vincent for her editing of the document. Acronyms ADB Asian Development Bank BOGs Basic Operational Guidelines CA Constituent Assembly CAP Consolidated Appeal Process (UN-OCHA) CAP Country Assistance Plan (DFID) 4 CBO Community-Based Organization CBS-N Central Bureau of Statistics of Nepal CPN (M) Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) CSPM Conflict-Sensitive Program Management DDC District Development Committee DFID UK Department for International Development HDI Human Development Index ICG International Crisis Group ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross ILO International Labour Organization INGO International Non-Governmental Organization IRDP Integrated Rural Development Program MDGs Millennium Development Goals NBCs Newars, Brahmins, and Chhettris NGO Non-Governmental Organization OCHA United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development PRSP Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper RNA Royal Nepalese Army SDC Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation UNDP United Nations Development Programme USAID United States Agency for International Development VDC Village Development Council WB World Bank WFP World Food Programme Feinstein International Center Introduction he Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) or CPN on the last decade (1996-2008), the period of the (M) launched its “People’s War” in 1996.2 At Maoist insurgency and of the subsequent largely suc- Tthe time, the Maoists were no more than a cessful peace process.4 small fringe party with hardly any weapons, few active members, and a support base limited to small pockets in We look at the way in which aid actors in Nepal remote hill areas. Yet, their ten-year armed insurgency framed their understanding of the Maoist insurgency transformed them into a powerful political force capable and of its implications for the implementation of their of standing alongside, and even overshadowing, Nepal’s activities. To complement this perspective, the study major, established parties. The rise of the Maoists in also attempts to broadly reconstruct the development/ Nepal is impressive by any standard. After a successful conflict narratives that informed the formulation and showing at the polls for the Constituent Assembly in operationalization of the aid paradigms pursued by April 2008, they came into power. To the astonishment foreign donors in Nepal in the last five decades. The of the world, this happened “at a time in history when donor community has been the key partner in Nepal’s Maoism appears to have been repudiated in the land of development efforts and therefore should be answerable its birth, and when the entire spectrum of Marxist- for both its failures and successes. As such, it is impor- Leninist doctrines stands ostensibly disgraced by the tant to explore whether and how development assis- 5 failure and eventual collapse of the Soviet Union, and tance was intertwined with the events that gave rise to China’s enthusiastic embrace of capitalist globalization, the insurgency and what lessons can be learned from on the other.”3 At the same time, foreign aid has been a this interaction. Our research therefore attempts to fixture of Nepal’s development efforts since the 1950s. answer the following questions: Currently, around seventy percent of the country’s de- velopment expenditure is financed by external sources. • Was the Maoist insurgency, which took hold, spread, Clearly, the donor community has been the key partner and was ultimately successful, linked to the nature of the in Nepal’s development successes and failures. How did aid policies that foreign donors and agencies imple- these two realities – the insurgency and foreign aid – mented in the country in the last five decades? In other interact? words, can we pinpoint a direct or indirect linkage be- tween donor policies and priorities and the emergence This report aims to explore this question through of the conflict? a retrospective analysis of the development/conflict • More broadly, should one define the conflict as nexus in Nepal. It looks at the underlying causes of the a response to the perceived “development failure” in Maoist success story in relation to donors’ development Nepal or should we look for other drivers of conflict policies and assistance activities in Nepal and at their (for example, political marginalization, unrepresentative interplay with the conflict environment in which aid nature of state formation, and various forms of discrim- actors found themselves operating. The report focuses ination in Nepali society)? 2 The Maoists started their “People’s War” in six Districts: Rukum, 4 On the CPN (M) victory at the April 2008 Constituent Assembly (CA) Rolpa, Jajarkot, Salyan, and Gorkha in the Mid-Western and Western elections, where they obtained approximately thirty percent of the votes, Regions, and Sindhuli in the Central Region. Their aim was to abolish see for example Deepak Thapa, ‘Hardly Surprising - the Maoists’ the monarchy and establish a People’s Republic. Organisational Skills Paid Off,’ Nepali Times, April 18-24, 2008; Mani Thapa, ‘Three Possibilities of the Maoist,’ Nepal Weekly, April, 27, 2008; 3 Ajai Sahni, ‘The Agony of the Ancien Regime,’ Heartland - Eurasian Prashant Jha, ‘Nepal’s Maoist Landslide,’ Open Democracy, April, 16, Review of Geopolitics, No. 3 (May 2005), p. 24. In the words of a 2008; and ICG (International Crisis Group), ‘Nepal’s Elections and younger-generation Maoist leader in charge of the stronghold of Rolpa Beyond,’ (Kathmandu: ICG/Nepal, 2008). Kul Chandra Gautam argues and of the far-western command, the Maoists have been “constantly that the people of Nepal voted for radical change. By sidelining old, raising three demands: the restructuring of the state, constituent established parties, and