What is Missing In Mountain Development

Like the waters that rush down these mountain slopes, many other things seem to have a penchant for moving down and out of the mountains — the soils, the people and even the economy. Against these powerful currents of nature and the market, present-day development appears to be a feeble counter force. Everyone's complaint these days has been the rapidly escalating costs and the negligible benefit of development programmes.

What is probably worse is that development forces are themselves beginning to trigger a whole new set of, what some see as negative, consequences. The most notable of these are the effects on the fragile hill environment. Roads have increased deforestation and denudation of hillsides, leading to frequent landslides, greater penetration of the market economy, and the consequent dislocation of traditional employment and income opportunities, and in some cases even increased inequality. The effects of energy projects are less well known. Education and training have encouraged "out-migration" of younger minds. Rural development projects are said to have created a dependency syndrome amongst the hill people.

Time and again, dedicated efforts have resulted only in sporadic successes. However, because of the physical and socioeconomic factors unique to the mountain space, the few successes have not been easily replicable. They have a low "demonstration effect".

Given the difficulties encountered in mountain development, what lessons are there to be learnt? Are many of the so-called negative consequences of development projects totally bereft of positive elements? Or can any of these difficulties or obstacles be turned into positive assets as forces for change?

No matter how the different development ideologies interpret ongoing changes in mountain areas, problems such as those of unemployment, rampant rural poverty, environmental stress and migration, are quite similar to the experience of other societies. The difference is one of degree, not of kind. If the experiences are similar, then there is obviously a lot to be learned from the history of development as a whole.

Many of us admire the hill farmer for having historically surmounted innumerable odds and succeeded in taming a rugged and difficult environment. But at the same time we also question the very future of hill farming. We tend to forget very quickly that it is the farmer living in these mountains and hills who changed them yesterday and is fully capable of changing them tomorrow also. In spite of the fragility of the mountain environment, its carrying capacity has been substantially increased over the centuries by the ingenuity of the hill farmer. Like everywhere else, that canying capacity can be constantly modified through better management and the development of human resources for harnessing new technology.

The hill farmers' capability to innovate is as strong today as it always was. This is evident from the different adaptive strategies they use, for example, in fuelwood consumption, livestock management or terracing. However, these adaptive strategies are too slow and limited at a time when the external forces of change are so immediate and overwhelming. Under such circumstances, the tides of change can only be tamed through the development of human resources, so that the villager has the technical and managerial skills to overcome the challenge of rapid change.

Human resources development has lagged sorely behind in Nepal's hill development experience. Until such times that the technical skills of the hill people are more fully developed and harnessed, the bulk of the infrastructure development like roads, and power projects can only provide momentary impulse of one-shot changes. In order to be sustainable, there must be a dynamic process of innovations and this is rarely possible without better human resources. So many development aid projects have been lopsided in this fundamental respect. They provide assistance for infrastructure building and for taking care of short-term problems, but they neglect the development of the human side. As the old saying goes, spoon feeding in the long -run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.

Mahesh Banskota is Chief Programme Coordinator at ICIMOD.

The Viewpoint section is a forum for debate and dialogue. Contributions are welcome. Opinion expressed here do not necessarily reflect the point of view of Himal's editors, or of the institutions with whom the writers are affiliated.