It is a beautiful country with lovely people but it is one of the biggest aid recipients per head of population in the world, with very poor results in terms of poverty reduction. Over the past thirty years there have been some improvements but not nearly enough. Half of Nepal's people live in absolute poverty. Maternal and infant mortality rates are very high. The political system is driven by patronage.
Civil servants are demoralised and poorly paid and corruption is rife.
Basic services desperately need to be improved, particularly for poor people. What is all the more heartbreaking is that the great struggle by the people of Nepal to win democracy in 1991 has failed to deliver the improvements it promised. There is now deep disillusionment which, with a weak civil society, is in danger of being channelled through support for insurgency rather than political means. We are all implicated in this failure, donors and the successive governments of Nepal. But while I am critical of our lack of progress, I am heartened by evidence during my visit that reform can succeed.