The continued decontextualisation and depoliticisation in Nepal’s development

Seven decades after the start of Nepal’s development history, the gap between ‘development’ as a global discourse and ‘bikas’ as a lived aspiration remains.

Nepal’s developmental experiences have been characterised by structural contradictions throughout history, even under radically differing political systems and development paradigms. Two common tendencies are associated with these contradictions. The first is decontextualisation, which refers to the importing of universal frameworks without considering Nepal’s specific social, ecological and historical contexts. The second is depoliticisation, in which political questions of inequality and power are turned into technical problems to be solved through project-based solutions.