Dr Arjun Karki is the international coordinator of LDC Watch, a global alliance of national, regional and international civil society organisations (CSOs), networks and movements based in the LDCs and supported by civil society from development partner countries. It acts as a coordinating body for LDC civil society to advocate, campaign and network for the realisation and review of the Brussels Programme of Action (BPoA) for LDCs for the decade 2001-2010 including other Internationally Agreed Development Goals (IADGs) such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It goes beyond the BPoA in addressing poverty, hunger, social injustice and human rights in the LDCs. Dr Karki has worked for more than two decades as an academic, social activist and development practitioner in Nepal. He is also involved in mobilising the political will of the global North and South as well as of LDC and non-LDC governments, the UN entities, EU, parliamentarians, international and multi-lateral organisations, think tanks, the academia and the media. In an interview with Gaurav Aryal and Modhnath Dhakal of New Business Age, Karki expressed his views on the possibility of Nepal graduating to the status of developing country by 2022 and other development issues. Excerpts: Nepali government plans to upgrade the country’s status from the least developed country (LDC) to a developing country by 2022. How realistic is this goal when the Nepali economy is not even growing at 4 per cent annually?
When Nepal was chair of LDCs, graduation from the status of LDC to developing country was one of the key issues we had brought up in front of the negotiating team. There were 24 countries in the LDC group of countries when they were created as a group in 1971. By the fourth conference, the number grew to 49 countries. Many of us thought about focusing on graduation for meaningful actions. If we don’t focus on graduation, it would be wastage of time and resources. We had an international commitment that says at least half of the LDCs have to be graduated by the end of 2020.
Nepal was leading the LDCs and the Nepali government representatives were chief negotiators. Nepal as a leader of the deal must really walk the talk. They must put money where their mouth is. Nepal really needs to make effort so that we graduate from the status of LDC. We have so many challenges. We had ten years of war and political instability; political parties, leaders and government are not organised. But they should remain consistent with their commitment, programmes and actions. Once Nelson Mandela said, until it is done it looks impossible. It may look impossible amid widespread frustration. But that is common characteristics of post-conflict countries and particularly LDCs.
What prospects do you see in the graduation observing the progress as of 2014?
We don’t have a choice. If I were a dealmaker, I would have targeted 2020 not even 2022. We had a very successful constituent assembly election. We now have democratically elected government. We have a bright future. Once political hurdles are settled and if we have political will, we can bring big changes in three to five years. What we lack is not the resources but the political will.
Couple of weeks back World Bank said that Nepal has aspirations to upgrade but does not have strategic plans. What is your take on it?
I would not agree with The World Bank. We have several strategies but we don’t act. We have wonderful programmes such as five year plans, country strategy papers and poverty reduction strategy programmes. We have well written and well crafted strategic documents but we don’t really walk the talk. We are one of the richest countries in natural resources. We have very generous support from international aid agencies. But our government always looks like they don’t have money.
What should be the top five activities the government and other concerned stakeholders should do for successful graduation?
Our focus has to be in the area of employment generation. That won’t only create employment but also generate state revenue and have implications in balance of payment and balance of trade. Our focus has to be on food security, livelihood and largely on human security rather than military security. We need to identify pro-poor strategies that also address regional and geographical imbalances. We have made miraculous progress in infrastructure development. But we don’t have strategy to productively utilise the remittance for the welfare of remittance receiving families.
As we have just eight years now, do you think all these priorities will be realised for the much needed graduation?
We are a small country with small population. If we are able to use five to six years meaningfully in addressing these development challenges, it won’t be an impossible target.
How is Nepal doing compared to other LDCs?
We are doing better than many LDCs such as Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan and Haiti that are going through political instability, war and conflict. But there are other LDCs such as Rwanda that are making miraculous progress. We also have countries like Guinea that are facing big challenges. There are five LDCs in Pacific Island: Solomon Island, Kiribati, Vanuatu, Tuvalu and Samoa. Tuvalu has 10 thousand plus population but they are one of the countries that are making good progress. We also have countries like Zimbabwe, that match the characteristics of LDC but the government refuses to call itself as LDC. Ethiopia is making very good socio-economic progress. Rwanda, Ethiopia and Nepal are some of the LDCs that are making good progress.
What are the solutions for effective fund mobilisation and increasing aid effectiveness?
We need to ensure that we have money for our priority areas. There must be local ownership on development projects. Once there is local ownership, people will drive it. We have to simplify the implementation procedure but people have to be at the forefront so that they will drive it and spend money. Our main concern is corruption. Policy makers don’t want to fully decentralise this to local community and people as policy makers have tendency to seek personal benefits. One of the big reasons why we are not being able to spend money is the lack of local government body for almost 16 years. This is a very embarrassing situation. We need to ensure that there is public auditing. It will help to increase transparency and absorptive capacity.
It is alleged that international donors and INGOs have been involved in corruption and lack transparency of fund mobilisation. What is your opinion?
The government is not the right authority to talk about it because it itself is mired in the deep sea of lack of transparency. What we need to understand is that NGOs and INGOs are also organisations created by our brothers and sisters. If we have gross problem of corruption and misuse of resources it is because of lack of political commitment and accountability to people and weak law enforcement. We must not generalise it. If it happens with INGOs and NGOs it can be easily resolved with enforcement of law and order. Even a Chief District Officer (CDO) can cancel the registration of a particular organisation if it is found involved in financial irregularities. If they are corrupt why aren’t they doing this? It is the non-implementation of law and order system. A CDO can check details of each and every NGO at any time s/he wants. What else can you expect more when s/he has rights to suspend the organisation at any time if any embezzlement is found? Every NGO must submit the original contract, amount of money, programme details, implementation district before they begin their project. So, if they don’t do that, the government has right to cancel that organisation.
