"Good Reads"

• Rajju Malla Dhakal, an insider of the foreign aid apparatus in Nepal, discusses the various issues surrounding the donor-recipient relationship and the effectiveness of foreign aid. My Op-Ed a while back touched on some of the same issues and I am glad to see that people from within the aid-development nexus are blowing the whistle! 

• Nepal's first PM with a PhD signs a proposal to "chart out a stringent anti-corruption bill. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

• Mukesh Khanal, an economist at the Institute for Integrated Development Studies, discusses the free-rider problem (amongst others) related to the proposed federalism in Nepal.

• Kul Chandra Gautam provides friendly advice to the Prime Minister Dr. Baburam Bhattarai and lists "10 essential things" he must do to succeed. Number one on the list is to "reassess the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideology in the 21st century."  

Foreign Aid and Corruption

I have posted a few times (here and here and here) on the effectiveness of foreign aid in general and in Nepal. Most recently I wrote about it in the Op-Ed forThe Kathmandu Post (CLICK HERE). Most of these posts relate to the systemic issues with foreign aid, however, I do think that corruption adds to the ineffectiveness of foreign aid. This news article (CLICK HERE) published on MyRepublica points out  that "a report of Ministry of Finance says that the level of corruption in the country has increased over the last 10 years and it has gone on to hurt the development results badly. Rise in corruption has mainly led to reduced cost effectiveness and efficiency of the development programs, states the Nepal Country Evaluation Report of the Paris Declaration that the national evaluation team submitted to the government recently."

Dambisa Moyo On Aid!

I think Ms. Moyo is asking the right questions and pointing to the issues related to failed policies of foreign aid.