Global-local
We Nepalis are famous for opening our umbrellas when it rains in America . Once in a while it might actually serve better if we check the global weather when planning picnic in the mountains.
The World Bank and IMF accomplished their annual meetings in Washington DC pledging 3.5 billion dollars for inclusive and sustainable development. Thanks to the expanding empires of the bikase niti, the vast world is rapidly turning into a small village. Yet its contours are uncertain, and many including Nepal remain the passive takers of decisions made in these glossy global forums underneath the euphemisms like ‘counterparts’ and ‘clients.’
Robert Zoellick, the new President of the World Bank, reiterated that the old ‘R’ that once stood for reconstruction of Europe and Japan after the World War II, now stands for reconstruction of the States harmed by modern conflicts. He acknowledged rightly that the Bank’s understanding of how to deal with such devastating modern conflicts is modest. His critics might go further to claim that the Bank’s record in democratisation and reconstruction is mistaken.
Francis Fukuyama, a globally acclaimed pundit of State-building, looked skeptical of his success when he cautioned the Bank audience that ‘State-building’ starts with the very act of ‘Stateness,’ which not only means domestic supremacy but also means sovereignty over external neo-imperialism of the aid raj. Alas, his fear was right. He was misunderstood, misquoted, misinterpreted. In this bikase bureaucracy, it is difficult to translate pure academic thinking into something more tangible than the elephant’s showing teeth.
The World Bank annual meeting gave a cold handshake to Ram Sharan Mahat’s much publicised pledge for funding for Nepal ’s vision on post-conflict reconstruction. It was met by the Bank’s stale old prescriptions of labour reform, charity grants, and businessmen-bashing. No words were exchanged on the whole new series of products the Bank has recently developed for some other post-conflict and post-capitalist countries who were more articulate and emphatic in their demands.
Reconstruction comes not solely from charity grants but as much from ambitious visions of infrastructure-building that truly serves the need of the rural areas and the poor. Competitiveness is achieved not only through stale old econometric gimmicks but as much from the common sense of putting money where the mouth is. Growth is sustained not from the ghosts of labour and fiscal policy reforms but as much from the smart economics of innovation, industrial engineering, technology and financial upgrade. The World Bank is a knowledge bank, and it sits on a unique wealth of knowledge. Beyond the rhetoric of development partnership, sadly, the onus is on the countries themselves to ensure that some of that knowledge find their ways to the rural and the marginalised who need them most.
These challenges require humility – and intellectual honesty. Many of the Bank’s development schemes and dreams have failed in Nepal . This is not a reason to quit trying. It is cause to focus continually, rigorously, and passionately on results.
