When the Nepalese government this week told international donors that it urgently needed more economic and military assistance to survive the economic recession, it was presenting a case that was too common in the debt-ridden Third World. The situation once again focuses on the need to re-examine international aid strategy.
Nepal’s crisis has been brought on largely by a Marxist insurrection that continues to disfigure the countryside. Two years ago, when donors last met in Katmandu, 20 governments and multilateral agencies pledged some $1 billion. Now the donors are back to take stock of where their money has gone and how much more is needed. Unfortunately, sources close to the meeting suggest that more than one foreign guest gave the impression that Nepal had had its chance and failed to take it.
If this is an accurate report, then the donors are making a serious error of judgment. Admittedly, there is evidence that significant sums of aid were embezzled by senior government officials. There is also proof that many of the programs that aid was supposed to fund never got off the ground. There is apparently a warehouse full of well-digging and irrigation equipment that has never been distributed. This should not be a reason for international donors to walk away, shaking their heads. What about the fact that by no means all the promised $1 billion of aid has in fact been produced within the agreed time scale? Indeed, some promises made two years ago have never been kept to any degree whatsoever.
There is impatience and a certain amount of ill-feeling on both sides. The government continues to insist that it is gaining the upper hand with the insurgents. Unfortunately, the rising tide of violence suggests that this is not strictly the case. Donors would like to see proper negotiations with the Marxists. But given their record of brutality and refusal to hold serious negotiations, the only alternative left to the government is to fight. But unless it receives the arms and sophisticated training necessary to flush out the insurgents, the conflict and, thus, the economic disruption will drag on and on. It is simple logic that the eventual cost to the international aid-giving community will spiral with the duration of the fighting. Local communities that were once viable economic units, working in tourism or manufacturing, are currently struggling to survive. If they break up, the social fabric that will disappear with them becomes hugely difficult, and sometimes impossible, to reconstruct. Therefore, aid should be given to Nepal now, and in large quantities. By all means, monitor and supervise it and try and catch those who are plundering money meant for their fellow citizens. But let the forces of law and order be properly trained and equipped and, most importantly, properly paid to go and do their dangerous jobs.
In no circumstances, should the aid tap be turned off or the flow of help reduced. A country should not have to crash to the disastrous level of Afghanistan before the pocketbooks of the international community open up. Nepal needs to be helped now, and generously, to avoid the collapse of society and the emergence of a state of anarchy which will, in due time, produce another Afghanistan.
