WRONG APPROACH
The Kathmandu
Post
6th February 2015
WRONG APPROACH
It was very interesting to go
through the article (“The next frontier” 4 February, Page 6) by Santosh
Gautam & Purna Bahadur Thapa. If we talk about the development programme in
Nepal,
we take this as the donor driven development agenda. This may be right to a
certain extent. However, while contemplating my many years of involvement in
bilateral projects, I never felt that they were donor-driven projects. Vision,
objectives and outputs of the development programme used to be set in a
participatory manner targeting benefits for the maximum number of groups. Project
documents were designed to guide the project team to implement projects in a
pro-beneficiary manner.
But, unless the targeted groups
are involved in all spheres, from analyzing their problems, identifying
solutions to overcoming those problems and implementing activities themselves, the
successful implementation of such development programmes will remain a concern.
Supervision and monitoring of such activities by the user groups are also a must
to ensure maximum transparency.
Many development programmes have
become failure because of these shortcomings.
On the other side, the government too has to clearly set the criteria for
involving the donors rather than letting them decide. For this, government need
to develop detailed resource maps to identify the area of development where
donor aid is needed.
Rai Biren Bangdel
Maharajgunj
