Failed policies and plans of Nepal since 1950s

Author Narayan Khadka, in his paper on ‘Challenges to Developing the Economy of Nepal’, which published in 1998 in Contemporary South Asia, argues that the main reason for the underdevelopment of Nepal was because of poor execution of the policies and plans it formulated. It’s been more than one and half a decade since the paper was published, the situation of the country has not been improved much. Some of the sectors such as media, telecommunication and services sector have been performing relatively better but the overall macro economy of the country is still frustrating. 

The abstract of the paper:

Nepal initiated a development policy and plans to both modernize and develop its predominantly agricultural economy only in the early 1950s. In the last four decades, the country has implemented nine five-year plans and invested billions of rupees to developed its economy. This article examines the poor performance of past development efforts in the light of myriad of challenges, local and global economic and political, structural and institutional. It includes that the economic reforms which have been introduced vigorously since the restoration of democracy in 1990 will not yield the desired results unless they effectively and positively contribute to improving the agricultural sector, lead to higher productivity and growth, generate increase mobilization of domestic resources, alleviate poverty and bring greater social equity.

Further, the author discuss the challenges of the economy of the Nepal as, Nepal has been experiencing with different development strategies every decade of so since 1950s. An inflow of aid helped create a minimum of socio-economic overheads in the country. However, the country is caught in a poverty trap and despite 40 years of planning and development efforts, 45 percent of the population have an income of less than a US$ 1.00 a day. The problems Nepal has been facing with regard to the development of the economy are not only socio-economic but also geographic and structural.