Understanding the interrelations between natural resources and development governance in federal Nepal

Abstract

Previous studies suggest that on one hand, governance practices have the potential to transform natural resources as key drivers of ecological and socio-economic development and on the other, their ineffectiveness can cast multilayered environmental, socio-economic, and political impacts. Conflicts related to resource appropriation, distribution, and control have been an inevitable part of Nepal’s socio-political grounds. Moreover, in recent times, haphazard development practices, unplanned and rapid urbanization processes, a lack of pro-public development strategies, and highly politicized natural resource management processes propel such pre-existing challenges but, at it’s core, lie the intergovernmental conflicts and policy discrepancies. Using media monitoring as a data collection tool and through qualitative analysis of interactions with stakeholders in Bara, Rupandehi and Sunsari districts of Nepal, this paper argues that there are complex and multifaceted interlinkages between sustenance of natural resources and development processes in Nepal that are triggered by high prioritization of economic values of natural resources, uneven allocation of resources and ambiguities in it’s ownership and jurisdictions, casting multilayered impacts on ecology and human security.