Last semester I took a workshop entitled “Improving Government Effectiveness†and since our return from Nepal I have been thinking a lot about what I learned in the course. The thought of improving government effectiveness could not be a more daunting task, especially in Nepal. One of the tools our professor taught us in the workshop is the helpful instrument of SWOT analysis. Through SWOT analysis we can breakdown Nepal’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. While Nepal has many examples of each of these points I will discuss the four I personally the most important.
A major strength for Nepal, related also to natural resources, is its large tourism industry. Tourism is already heavily utilized as a resource but there is always room for growth especially with recent trend of eco-tourism. As we saw at the Three Sister’s Trekking Company tourism brings the funding to create sustainable change. The company provides training for women to learn how to be trekking guides and provides the women economic opportunities that might otherwise not be accessible.
Paraglider overlooking Pokhara Valley, Nepal
While the Nepal government is very encompassing it is highly centralized which is such a large weakness. In Nepal there is a large discrepancy between rural and urban areas in terms of economic spending, educational opportunity, and local government agencies. Nepal’s powerful central government comes not only from their monarchial history but also from their history of destabilization throughout the latter part of the 20th century. When Nepal started to rebuild their government there was such an emphasis to democratize the central government and while there was some effort to strengthen the local government it was not enough to remain sustainable.
One large opportunity for Nepal is its natural resource potential especially the opportunity to be a major hydropower supplier to India and surrounding countries. Hydropower could not only help to bring economic gains to Nepal but also infrastructure such as roads, power, and telecommunication. Nepal could also use the resource as a bargaining chip to procure funding for community projects such as agriculture development or schools for the workers.
Nepal’s history of corruption and instability have is a major threat to the legitimacy and stability of Nepal as a whole. With heavy corruption in the political parties, which, influences everything from business to the security sector, it is hard to take their validity seriously. Not only have crime and corruption affected the government’s legitimacy but also the long history of minority oppression and human rights violations. These threats were so great they were a major reason for the Maoist uprising in the first place as well as the uncertainty in the peacebuilding process.
