Analysis of Sustainable Development Challenges in Nepal: A Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of sustainable development in Nepal, a landlocked country facing significant challenges. It delves into the three pillars of sustainability—social, environmental, and economic—to identify key issues. Social challenges include corruption, social inequalities, and gender disparities, while environmental concerns encompass pollution and waste management. Economic hurdles involve financial resource shortages and conflicts between investment and profit. The report proposes solutions such as vocational and educational programs, and effective governmental policies. It concludes that sustainable development in Nepal is achievable through coordinated efforts from citizens and governmental bodies, highlighting the importance of addressing these issues for the country's future. The report emphasizes the uniqueness of Nepal's situation and the need for tailored development strategies.

Running head: SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN NEPAL
Sustainable Development in Nepal
Name of the Student:
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction............................................................................................................................2
2. Discussion..............................................................................................................................2
2.1. Description of the region.................................................................................................2
2.2. Regional challenges........................................................................................................3
2.3. Solutions..........................................................................................................................5
3. Conclusion..............................................................................................................................5
4. References:.............................................................................................................................7

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1. Introduction
Sustainable development refers to the process or a concept of organising principle of
sustaining finite resources that are important for providing the requirement of the future
generation for life on the planet (Bocken et al. 2014). According to what defined by the
United Nations, sustainable development actually is a common agenda for the global concern
that each and everyone agrees upon, but successfully bringing it into public policies is quite
difficult. Gaining a thorough understanding of this area and its challenges is very important in
the current environment and this could help in living a more altruistic and conscious life. This
paper shall elaborate on identifying the regional challenges associated with sustainable
development in Nepal and would further provide some solutions for overcoming the
challenges.
2. Discussion
2.1. Description of the region
Nepal is a landlocked country, located in South Asia. It is mainly located in the
southern slopes of Himalayan region and also comprise of some of the parts of Indo-Gangetic
Plain (Shrestha et al. 2014). It is a very unique developing country because of its geopolitical
location, culture and political practices. However, it is to note that Nepal is a developing
country and it has faced several economic, social and environmental issues in the last 10
years. Some of the most visible of them are the high level of pollution in water bodies like
Bagmati River, which, after immense efforts have now become cleaner after a long time.
Having had I grown up in this country, one thing is still prominent in my memory and that is
the rubbish that were present everywhere. Also, it has recently undergone a process of
accelerated growth and development and also, there is an introduction of the consumerist
culture that in the lack of conjunction, with the shortage of awareness about the

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environmental challenges has resulted in inefficient usage of freshwater that is highly
abundant in this country.
2.2. Regional challenges
There are several regional challenges faced by Nepal. In order to form a clear picture
of the challenges the three pillars of sustainability model would be used. It is to note that the
three pillars of sustainability is a powerful tools that defines the complete problem of
sustainability (Khoshnava et al. 2018). It comprise of economic, environmental and social
pillars. If any one of the pillars gets weak, the system become unsustainable as a whole. The
regional challenges faced by Nepal in terms of three pillars of sustainability are as follows:
a) Social- There are several social issues present in this country that requires urgent
attention. In order to become concise, it is important to shed light on the crucial
issues, notwithstanding this fact, it is also to mention that it is important to
comprehend that each and every inequality, no matter how small or big it is, deserves
attention (Mendenhall et al. 2014). Notwithstanding this fact, one of the most
significant social issue is the social inequalities present in Nepal and that is the high
level of corruption prevalent in the Nepal government. It is to note that Khoshnava et
al. (2018) have described corruption as a “private wealth-seeking behaviour of
someone who represents the state and public authority. It is the misuse of public
goods by public officials, for private gains.” It plays a great role in the present
situation of Nepal where the country is suffering from a slow rate of development,
increase in pollution and high level of poverty. With the same, it is also to mention
that although Nepal is a democratic country, it is very tough to gain the recognition of
new political party in Nepal (Neupane, Soar and Vaidya 2014). This is why, the same
faces stay in the power, though they are not in the position of the power in the eyes of
the public. This simply means that “bribery continues to get handed around from the
corporations for the police to turn the blind eye to the amount of wastage that they are
churning into the nearby river”. The next social issue is that of gender inequality,
which is excessive in Nepal despite of the mass immigration of male workers abroad
in search of living while women are left for taking the responsibility of farms, local
businesses and homes. The Nepalese women are doomed for living a life that is

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associated with immense difficulties. The women who are identified as being
pregnant with a girl are often forced to undergo abortion domestically. Also, as per
the recent data, about 71% of the Nepalese men are literate while only 43% of women
are so and this shortage of access to education for women is mainly because of the
pressure of marriage, family responsibilities and engaging in married life by the
family members and society (Cohen 2015).
b) Environmental- Nepal is one of the highly polluted and dirty country. There is rubbish
present everywhere, be it the streets, the rivers or the fields. Because of having
shortage of knowledge about recycling the rubbish, the same system of “dealing with
waste produced by the inhabitants of Kathmandu (especially) has been employed –
dumping it all in landfills and hoping for the best without investing in appropriate
infrastructure to reduce the rubbish in the Kathmandu waste sites” (). Rubbish is
something that is a common and constant fixture in Nepal. Despite of huge numbers
of pilot projects that are run for testing out the methods of reducing the levels of waste
like building faecal sludge treatment plants and different infrastructure of allowing the
generation of biogas, because of the prominent incompetence of Nepal municipalities
and government, all these projects are left abandoned. However, it is also to mention
that luckily, this problem is not completely ignored because the local initiatives are
created for combating the issue and one of these initiatives is the WEPCO (Women’s
Environment Preservation Committee) (Chan and Hale 2015). Created in the year
1992, they are dedicated for conserving and cleaning the urban environment of
Kathmandu Valley. Because of these initiatives much awareness are raised among the
Nepali society, particularly among the youths, regarding the consequences of the
polluted environment and also a municipal Solid Waste Management have been
proposed.
c) Economic- Being a developing country, there is a shortage of financial resources in
Nepal for carrying out and planning the sustainable development. Because of Nepal

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being a patriarchal society, the economic abuse is very commonly used in against of
the women with the men claiming that the entire access to the shared funds and
economies and belittling women by monitoring the basic spending habits of theirs
(Luitel et al. 2015). With the same, there is a government conflict between the
immediate investment and profit towards the sustainable technologies. For example,
in Poland, the government has increased the level of financing towards the mining
sector instead of moving the full steam ahead towards the adoption of sources of
sustainable energy, with coal amounting towards about 80% of total generation of
energy in Poland. These measures are supposed to be implemented as a move for the
votes of win miners in Southern part of Poland (Szulecki 2017).
2.3. Solutions
Despite of having very tough situations in which most of the developing nations
presently find themselves in, the concept of sustainable development is still achievable. It is
just that it will require lots of coordinated and concentrated efforts. If proper “supply-side”
policies like vocational and educational programmes are implemented, the rates of illiteracy
will significantly drop and also, people will be made more aware of the environment that is
surrounding them that would aid to a significant rise in the environmental awareness. With
the same, a proper government, that prioritise the development and growth of the green GDP
instead of the measured GDP by usual methods need to come into power and must use its
budget more efficiently for investing in the green energies, benefits systems and health
services among the others.
3. Conclusion
Hence, from the above analysis it is to conclude that Nepal need to go through a true
eye*opener until and unless the citizen of Nepal and the people who are responsible for the

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well-being of the environment of the country wake up. There is a lack of efforts and
contribution from the both the government and municipal level of Nepal. Nepal is a very
unique developing country because of its geopolitical location, culture and political practices
and also, not all the development projects that are active in Nepal could be applied to other
developing nations in the world. However, this helps in illustrating how challenging it is to
ensure sustainable development for many nations and also, how important it is to achieve. It
can be hoped that liquidations of the corruption in the political system of Nepal can make a
headway for bringing in positive changes. It is also to be concluded that despite of being
incredibly hard to achieve, sustainable development in Nepal is still achievable and it is only
when every citizen and governmental bodies in Nepal is dedicated for achieving it. For
allowing this to happen, the entire world needs to wakeup call for the cosmic dimensions.

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4. References:
Bocken, N.M., Short, S.W., Rana, P. and Evans, S., 2014. A literature and practice review to
develop sustainable business model archetypes. Journal of cleaner production, 65, pp.42-56.
Chan, S. and Hale, T., 2015. Galvanizing the groundswell of climate actions in the
developing world. Galvanizing the Groundswell of Climate Actions, 18.
Cohen, A., 2015. Two-dimensional man: An essay on the anthropology of power and
symbolism in complex society. Routledge.
Khoshnava, S.M., Rostami, R., Valipour, A., Ismail, M. and Rahmat, A.R., 2018. Rank of
green building material criteria based on the three pillars of sustainability using the hybrid
multi criteria decision making method. Journal of Cleaner Production, 173, pp.82-99.
Luitel, N.P., Jordans, M.J., Adhikari, A., Upadhaya, N., Hanlon, C., Lund, C. and Komproe,
I.H., 2015. Mental health care in Nepal: current situation and challenges for development of a
district mental health care plan. Conflict and health, 9(1), p.3.
Mendenhall, E., De Silva, M.J., Hanlon, C., Petersen, I., Shidhaye, R., Jordans, M., Luitel,
N., Ssebunnya, J., Fekadu, A., Patel, V. and Tomlinson, M., 2014. Acceptability and
feasibility of using non-specialist health workers to deliver mental health care: stakeholder
perceptions from the PRIME district sites in Ethiopia, India, Nepal, South Africa, and
Uganda. Social science & medicine, 118, pp.33-42.
Neupane, A., Soar, J. and Vaidya, K., 2014. An empirical evaluation of the potential of public
e-procurement to reduce corruption. Australasian Journal of Information Systems, 18(2).

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Shrestha, P.S., Shrestha, S.K., Bodhidatta, L., Strand, T., Shrestha, B., Shrestha, R., Chandyo,
R.K., Ulak, M. and Mason, C.J., 2014. Bhaktapur, Nepal: the MAL-ED birth cohort study in
Nepal. Clinical Infectious Diseases, 59(suppl_4), pp.S300-S303.
Szulecki, K., 2017. Poland's Renewable Energy Policy Mix: European Influence and
Domestic Soap Opera.