Toward bottom-up accountability : negotiating cooperative development projects in Nepal
Date
2004
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Haverford College. Department of Political Science
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Award
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eng
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Abstract
This paper introduces the intricacies of top-down development programs of organization such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Literature produced by many top-down development programs today admits to the failures of past projects and praises people-centered development projects. These bottom-up development projects are praised for their cost-effectiveness and sustainability. The development literature states that when community members take part in the planning and implementation of development projects that will benefit them, they feel an ownership of the project and are dedicated to see the project succeed and sustain. International Development is at an important juncture now that the large donors endorse and are beginning to finance bottom-up programs. After the success of the Grameen Bank strategy of micro-credit lending, top-down donors began channeling funds to bottom-up community organizations for joint-accountability loans. These micro-credit groups tap the advantages of a location's pre-existing networks of trust, what Robert Putnam calls social capital. This paper analyzes these themes in the context of Nepal using my fieldwork data and supplementary internet sources. When a community displays aspects of discrimination, should the top-down funder of the project step in and silence that aspect of the community? The last question I examine in this paper is should development projects separate out underprivileged members of the community into their own development organizations or whether they should remain in the mainstream development projects.