The coloniality of development ideas in Nepal

Development initiatives in Nepal are often shaped by externally generated frameworks and concepts, which dictate how problems are defined, solutions are prescribed, and progress is measured. These tools, originating from specific power centers, arrive in Nepali communities carrying inherent hierarchies of knowledge, potentially reasserting coloniality through new development vocabularies.

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Before a single rupee of development funding reaches a Nepali community, a decision has already been made elsewhere, not about budgets, but about vocabulary.

Over decades, Nepal's development landscape has been influenced by successive waves of these frameworks. The 1950s and 1960s saw 'modernization' and linear economic growth concepts, institutionalized by the Bretton Woods system. The 1970s and 1980s brought market-led structural adjustment with concepts like 'privatization' and 'trade liberalization,' often imposed through World Bank and IMF conditionality. The 1990s introduced NGO-led development with concepts of 'participation,' 'empowerment,' and 'civil society.' Currently, the Sustainable Development Goals provide the master framework, accompanied by concepts such as 'resilience' and 'leaving no one behind.'

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They are generated in specific power centres and arrive in communities carrying a particular hierarchy of knowledge.

While each shift reflects evolving intellectual understandings of poverty and inequality, it also serves the institutional interests of those who fund, implement, and evaluate development programs. Local institutions in Nepal often align with dominant frameworks to access resources, leading to a system that, as argued by Prof. David Mosse, prioritizes maintaining institutional relationships and claiming success over achieving actual development outcomes. Frameworks provide the structure for these claims, and concepts offer the language.

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This is not primarily a system for achieving development outcomes; it is a system for maintaining institutional relationships and allowing each party to claim success.

A notable example of this phenomenon is Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA). Initially championed with transformative ambitions to empower communities, the concept of 'participation' became progressively emptied of its political content as it became a standard requirement in donor project documents. Scholars have termed this 'participatory tyranny,' where externally designed participatory processes compel communities to 'perform' engagement, undermining genuine local voice and agency.

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However, as ‘participation’ became a standard requirement of donor project documents, it was progressively emptied of its political content.