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Development Nepal |
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Development and Stability |
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Interview |
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“The country is showing a lot of optimism right now, and there is a unique window of opportunity to use this to break the cycle of fatalism and cynicism that sometimes overshadows the myriad of success stories that have always been there.”
Mallika Shakya Young Professional, World Bank
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May 19, 2007 |
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Mallika Shakya joined the World Bank as a Young Professional (YP) in 2004. Only two Nepalese have successfully made to the YP program after the year 1992. According to the World Bank website, 8,000 – 10,000 applications are received each year for a limited number of positions. Trained at London School of Economics as a specialist on the role of cultural capital in private sector development, Mallika has been awarded with various honors and awards for her academic excellence, both within Nepal and outside. She remains passionate about Nepal’s development, and is actively engaged in various diaspora initiatives on gender, ethnicity, democracy, and State restructuring. She is an adviser to the Nepal-Americas Council (NAC) and is one of the founding members of Liberal Democracy Nepal (LDN). In her current assignment within the World Bank, Mallika has been working on export competitiveness issues. She has led public-private dialogues on removal of non-tariff barriers between Bangladesh and Northeast India; formed industrial clusters among the modern manufacturers in Bangladesh to enhance their competitiveness; and has developed a business strategy for mainstreaming gender into South Asia’s private sector development.
Mallika recently shared her views with Development Nepal on a wide range of issues focusing on Nepal’s developmental opportunities and challenges.
Development Nepal: It has been almost three years that you have joined the World Bank as a Young Professional. It is a matter of pride to all Nepalis engaged and interested in development. Can you tell our readers something about yourself and your journey to becoming a Young Professional?
Thank you. Although they are called Young Professionals, the YPs in the World Bank are actually not that young. On average, an YP is just over thirty and has 7.5 years of professional work experience which testifies for his/her leadership potentials. My own profile is not very different. I was in UNICEF office for South Asia between 1993-2001, where I started as a clerk/typist and graduated as an economic policy specialist. In addition to my formal qualifications, I am passionate about development and democracy. I am keen to understand how the global development machine, which the world is investing so heavily on, can be made to work fruitfully for the small developing countries like Nepal. And of course I feel that the process of YP-isation has made me more Nepali than ever, in a ‘global’ sort of way!
DN: Can you tell us something about your area of work and your current research interests and activities? Do any of them involve Nepal?
I am a trade and private sector development specialist. Currently I am working to develop a holistic framework for developmental assistance on export competitiveness, with special focus on industrial policy issues such as: (i) fiscal and financial incentives for export; (ii) financial instruments to facilitate export transactions; (iii) industrial innovation and quality enhancement; (iv) export promotion and global linkages; (v) export zones, etc.
In my own time and personal capacity, I have worked with diaspora friends to found Liberal Democracy Nepal (LDN), a Nepali diaspora think-tank, housed in University of New Mexico. Last March, I moderated a LDN e-seminar on ‘The State’s Role in Private Sector Development in New Nepal,’ which initiated a dialogue between the Nepali government officials, businessmen, and diaspora academics on this important topic. One of my forthcoming articles in a European academic journal analyses the trends of business networking, trust-building and innovation among the various ethnic entrepreneurs in Nepal. I am also interested in development-democracy nexus, and am writing on the changes that the Nepalese business environment is currently facing in the changed political context. I also write a column in a monthly magazine New Business Age on Kautilya Neeti: Private Sector Development in Nepal.
DN: What motivated you to pursue a career in development? What keeps you going in this field?
When I started my career in development as a sixteen-year old, frankly, I was motivated by the salary and the charm of multinational working environment it offered. Over the course my priorities have changed along with my life circumstances, and now I feel that the best use of my skills is in trying to help millions of less fortunate around the world who suffer for no fault of their own.
My PhD fieldwork exposed me to the plights of the businessmen and workers who take tremendous risks to keep the economy, and hence development, going. During my fieldwork between 2002 and 2004, I have seen several large garment factories shut down overnight, leaving behind thousands unemployed and destitute. I have seen how the political insurgency only exacerbated the crisis. As a researcher, I anticipated the looming crisis, but I feel that I failed to realize its magnitude and penetration. I think my big lesson learn from it was the importance of understanding the development-peace-democracy nexus.
I cannot think of any other alternative but to ensure that we get our industrial policies and our social protection systems right so the global and local volatilities do not leave us shipwreck. I really would like to believe that what I am investing in now in my job in the World Bank is helping me develop a better understanding as to how economics can be mobilized to reduce sufferings at the grassroots level, how it can be made to contribute to peace and stability.
DN: How challenging is it to reconcile the development tasks/debates in Washington DC and other Northern capitals with the field realities that you have experienced in rural and urban Nepal?
Development is multifaceted and there are several challenges in successfully translating global policy prescriptions into local solutions. However, in my opinion, there is no alternative to engaging with the international organizations in today’s world where the developmental, economic, and sometimes political agendas are all interconnected. Nepal has made serious efforts in the 1990s to outgrow from its Himalaya- and India-lockedness, and to suggest that we revert to isolation again will be simply untenable. Instead, Nepal should develop a clearer vision and it should engage more effectively with its international counterparts so that international development assistance is not donor-centric but Nepal-centric. International development assistance is like an architect’s technical assistance in construction of a house. Organisations like the World Bank, ADB, or the United Nations are the service-providers: The onus is on the Nepalis to make sure that the dialogue is owned and led by Nepalis. If we are not too clear about what kind of house we want, they cannot give us a house we want.
The middle income countries, and even some South Asian countries, no longer come to the World Bank for support on broad concepts, reports and advices. They come with precise and narrowed-down specifications of what they need. This level of precision has often been achieved by ensuring that their senior government officials who are steering these dialogues are very clear about: (i) what are the immediate and long-term needs of the country; (ii) what their international counterparts can and cannot offer; and (iii) what is the organizational procedure to engage with them. Nepal, on the other hand, still seems to dwell in the world of everything and nothing. Sometimes it overly dependent on donors not only to give funding and technical support but to almost spoon-feed the solutions. This is a great irony.
DN: There is this huge outflow, almost an exodus, of young Nepali students to the US and other developed countries. Do you think Nepal still has a chance to utilize their skills in some way? How?
I think culture and origin are increasingly more dominant in forming people’s identities in today’s world than citizenship or residence per se. Let’s take the example of the Indian exodus to Africa and England in the early twentieth century, it is difficult to disregard the contributions these communities have made in introducing Indian culture abroad as well as in ushering in global knowledge and skills to India.
If we think more in contemporary terms, technology has advanced phenomenally in facilitating exchange of ideas and efforts across nations and continents. For example, the Nepali diaspora came forth in a very coordinated fashion to denounce the February 2005 royal coup, to put voice for democracy and liberalism, and to find a peaceful solution to political grievances. There are more than 30 diaspora organizations in the North America alone who are working on a wide range of Nepal-related issues. A very significant amount of Nepal’s GNP comes from remittances. If Nepal is serious about utilizing skills of the diaspora, it can begin by small steps such as setting up e-seminar facilities to initiate joint dialogues on key themes in a cost-effective fashion. It can open further avenues for diaspora experts to institutionally engage with Nepal, be it through short- and long-term advisory and staff exchange programs in areas where there is shortage of local expertise.
FDI is another area where Non-Resident Nepalis (NRNs) can contribute substantially to Nepal’s development. From the diaspora side, Nepal-America Council (NAC) is formally initiating dialogues with the Nepali government about improving investment climate for NRNs to invest in Nepal, which include issues such as voting and organizational rights, long-term visas and dual citizenship, taxation and capital repatriation rights, etc. I think these might offer very interesting economic opportunities for Nepal that it should explore enthusiastically.
DN: We have experienced almost six decades of development in Nepal. Critics say development has only benefited the rich and produced more inequality. Do you see development producing results for Nepal?
I think of development to be multi-sectoral and each sector can be a three-tier paradigm. First, a country should have a critical mass of A-grade researchers and philosophers who codify, analyze and interpret Nepal’s developmental challenges. This should be a purely academic undertaking which should take stock of the knowledge from abroad and around. Second, there should be a team that specializes in translating this new knowledge into precise policy prescriptions and packages. Third, a sound operating mechanism should be developed at national and grassroots levels to spearhead implementation under a grand vision and a coordinated framework.
What I currently see in Nepal is a bit of a hodgepodge, where academics, think-tanks and NGOs are all so dependent on donor funding that they do not differentiate between knowledge generation, application development and implementation. On the first tier, academics and think-tanks lack both disciplinary standards and interdisciplinary insights; on the third tier, activists are over-focused on dishing out quick money and quick solutions, and under-focused on finding solutions that have a market rigor and hence sustainability. Like many other developing countries, Nepal is at times inundated with papers that are academically dwarf and operationally unengaging. It then should not come as a surprise that the fruits of development industry contribute to elitism, snobbishness and exacerbation of income gaps.
Another problem I see in Nepal’s development efforts is that the agenda revolves around the public sector and totally ignores the importance of a private sector, in both social and commercial fields. We sometimes act as if the government is going to feed every new-born and cremate every dead in every house. We sometimes overlook how weak and inadequate the government provisions have always been even in the basic areas such as employment, social service, and public goods; and how individuals have been always supplementing it. Now, just because the country had a regime-change, it is unrealistic to expect that the government will miraculously come and deliver a panacea for everyone.
Where Nepal can and should be proud of is its longstanding movement for democracy and liberalism which has shown the world that what Nepal lacks in economic measures is more than compensated in its firm conviction in pluralism, peace, and its ability to seek solutions out of an impossibly complicated conflict. Not many countries around the world have taken themselves through three painstaking regime-changes – in 1951, 1991 and 2006 – all consistently geared towards liberalism and divergence of views. Nor can many countries set the example, like Nepal did, as to how a peace and reconciliation process can be successfully initiated and led by national leaders even in circumstances where the international experts had failed to see even glimpses of hope. The April revolution was indeed one occasion which reiterated, once again, that solutions lie within not outside. This is, in my opinion, something all Nepalis should be proud of, and something that should be treated as a milestone not only in politics, but equally, or more so, in development-thinking.
DN: What in your opinion should be the developmental priorities in the making of a ‘new’ Nepal? In other words, what in your opinion can we do to make development for accessible to all including the poor and the marginalized?
I think the emerging issues such as federalism, republicanism, ethnic and gender equality, and political liberalism will continue to guide the trajectories of ‘new’ Nepal. These exhilarating political developments are of historical significance, however, for peace to be sustainable, the focus on security, political and constitutional issues will soon need to be matched by a greater emphasis on issues of reconstruction and development. The common Nepali has now begun to yearn for rapid progress in living standards and socio-economic conditions as tangible benefits of peace and democracy.
Nepal should, before it is too late, walk the talk and translate political gains into economic prosperity. What I currently see in Nepal is a story of two New-Nepals. On one hand, the country is witnessing a series of grassroots level successes, not only commercial and social sector innovations but also in higher social awareness, voice and empowerment. The country is showing a lot of optimism right now, and there is a unique window of opportunity to use this to break the cycle of fatalism and cynicism that sometimes overshadows the myriad of success stories that have always been there. We see the youth and the rural being united and mobilized on common causes like never before. On the other hand, however, the overall State structure remains hostage to some stale-old bureaucratic mindset and incompetent leadership. There is no polite way of saying this, but the State bureaucratic mentality in Nepal is what is holding it back from a silent revolution. We have no more excuses for this, each and every of our neighbours in South Asia has left Nepal far behind in civil service competence. Until we consolidate this paradox, it is going to be next to impossible to sustain any momentum that might ever spontaneously evolve in any corner of the grassroots level.
If we want to liberate the country from such mental slavery, we must embark on a deep surgical treatment of our civil service or the governance skeleton. If we want a visionary State mechanism, there is no other alternative but to develop a thorough selection procedure and attractive incentives structure so the best students and professionals from around the country are rescued from NGO-ism to a career in State service. What Nepal cannot offer in terms of remunerations, it can well offer in terms of the scope and opportunity for leading the change. If the working conditions are set right, bright and committed people will surely come forth to join the civil service. We cannot expect any real change without building a critical mass of public bureaucrats with a positive mindset. Any other discussion on implementation will be fruitful only after achieving this very basic element.
(The views expressed in this interview are personal and do not represent that of the World Bank.) |
