Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
68-79)
DR MARY
HOBLEY AND
PROFESSOR MICK
MOORE
12 JANUARY 2010
Q68 Chairman: Thank you very much for
waiting. Just for the record, could you just introduce yourselves,
please?
Dr Hobley: Yes. Hello, I am Mary
Hobley. I have worked on and off in Nepal for 20-plus year with
frequent visits. I used to live in two districts and worked in
a couple of villages there near Kathmandu. So I have had a long
association in Nepal and, also, in the South Asian region as well.
I am currently working as an independent consultant.
Professor Moore: I am Mick Moore;
I am a researcher/political scientist from the Institute of Development
Studies. I do quite a lot of work for DFID around issues of governance,
broadly speaking. I do not know Nepal anything like as well as
Mary does but I have been there several times for DFID in the
last few years in relation to political and governance issues.
Q69 Chairman: Thank you for that.
I guess as a case study Nepal must be an interesting political
study. One of the things, of course, that DFID has stated in its
recent White Paper is that it is focusing more attention on fragile
states, and by any definition Nepal has to be classified as a
fragile state; very much, hopefully, in a post-conflict situation
but one that is still full of tension. We were discussing in the
previous evidence sessions the extent to which things have actually
happened in terms of poverty reduction in Nepal, but the interesting
question is to what extent do you think Nepal is a country where
DFID can make a difference? What are the particular features,
circumstances or characteristics of Nepal that possibly offer
that compared with other post-conflict countries? That seems to
be what is coming back.
Dr Hobley: I think there are several
characteristics about Nepal. Yes, it is fragile and it is post-conflict
now but it has previously had a very long period of settled political
process—very difficult in many ways—but a period where
a lot of investment went into building a capable public service
and a capable government structure. So in some ways it is a country
that still has that; it is not a country where it has failed in
every form of its governance; it has not and it has got those
elements of governance that people understand and wish to continue
to try and rebuild. So you are building on a strong base rather
than a weak base. You often hear people say: "Capability
is not very great" but I think, as we have already heard
this morning, actually out there in the villages there is a lot
of capability and there is a lot of willingness now for educated
people with good technical skills to go back out into the districts
and to deliver services. So, in a sense, although, yes, fragile
there are some huge building blocks there that I think distinguish
it from other countries which have not had that sort of history
of engagement and support. For the UK there is a very particular
reason to remain engaged and positive there because of our own
long history working in Nepal, but for me it is that which distinguishes
it from other fragile states—that it has this strong basis
of civil society, it has strong local organisations and it has
a strong base of educated and able people.
Professor Moore: I think, Mr Chairman,
the central paradox is the one you mentioned earlier, that on
paper nothing much should work in Nepal but, in fact, an awful
lot does work. As you say, it is such a fascinating country to
study. I would add, I think, to what Mary said that we have a
very small formal government in Nepal, a very small number of
people and an even smaller number of professionals in government,
but still things get done. I think it is partly because of past
training but partly because there is this inheritance of what
you might broadly call the feudal monarchy, which was really quite
recent, and Nepal has this very long tradition of just managing
at sub-national level; things get done. It is very hard to say
exactly how it happens, and I am sure it varies from place to
place, but there is an enormous resilience there that you might
not find in many other of those countries we call fragile states.
I suppose if I can make a comment on fragile states in general,
I think it is a little bit (excuse the cliché) like Tolstoy:
every happy family is alike but every unhappy family is unhappy
in its own way. I really think fragile states are quite different
one from another. Nepal, partly because it was not a British colony
and it did not have a modern civil service, is quite distinctive;
it does have this resilience about it. There are parts of the
government that actually do work surprisingly well. Fiscal management
has actually been very good in Nepal in the last few years despite
civil war and conflict, which I think is quite striking. So there
is a lot we can build on. I would just add one thing about the
role of DFID, which I think is an issue with the international
context of all this is. From my perspective, the biggest single
problem that Nepal faces at present is the difficulty of constructing
an effective, authoritative government when it is in that context
where you have the India/China problem. To be frank, I think India
has been playing a slightly negative role in recent months, in
particular, particularly because the government of India has a
very close relationship with the Nepali Army. That army is more
or less autonomous, and all the time you have an army that is
autonomous and is not under the control of a civilian government
it is very hard to get effective governance more broadly. I think
DFID plays a very important role because it is not India, it is
not China, it has these very long links and traditions and it
is very widely trusted; I sensed very little hostility or suspicion
towards Britain. It is not just DFID; it is the British Embassy
as well—let us say it is the British presence, not DFID.
I think that is actually quite important. There is every reason
to think that Nepal will do rather well. I happen to think that
the biggest single factor about the future of Nepal—one
is governance and the second is the Indian economy. The Nepali
economy is a bit of a fiction because it is so integrated with
the Indian economy on all sides—people are crossing the
border all the time—and the Indian economy is doing very
well, again, and I suspect Nepal will do very well on the back
of that.
Q70 Mr Lancaster: It is fascinating.
I have got a long history with the place, for reasons I will not
bore with you, but it is very hard, is it not, to actually put
your finger on how it works, particularly at a local level. This,
really, I suppose, begs the question whether or not you feel that
DFID has the expertise to be able to deal with that very complex
situation, not least because, as we have talked about, local government
does not really exist. I was impressed at the number of local
staff that DFID were employing, which I think is very encouraging,
but do we have the expertise to be able to deal with this very
complex society in-country? If not, what do you think we should
be doing?
Dr Hobley: My feeling is that
because Nepal is highly complicated and the understanding of the
local is so important in terms of understanding how the whole
will work that I do not think DFID has sufficient local political
intelligence to help it inform the national level policy decisions
that are being made. I say that because of the complexity of the
country, because understanding how the political process is happening
in the villages and towns across Nepal is incredibly important
to understanding how conflict arises at the high levels. I think
DFID has done very well in terms of engaging local staff but there
is something very different about having people from outside as
well as local staff. People from outside are able to ask questions
that for local people are often quite hard to ask; they are also
able to move up and down the system in a way that is different
from Nepalis, but of course, also linking into Nepalis to understand
their own networks and relationships and how informal decisions
are made and how those informal decisions affect major policy
decisions and operations. So, for me, reflecting back on the evidence
we were hearing earlier, I would be looking for more DFID engagement
at the local level, which I think would require staff to have
good local language skills and would also, I think, require them
to remain in-country longer than is currently the case. This whole
process of how you hand on political and institutional knowledge
within DFID, I think, is a crucial issue and a very important
one, particularly in these types of contexts where complexity
is key to understanding how the future of that country is going
to run through. I would definitely be looking for staff with both
much deeper local knowledge and local historical political knowledge
than they have necessarily, and a longer commitment to the country
and much stronger local political networks as well as ones within
Kathmandu.
Professor Moore: My sense is that
relative to other countries where DFID works they are rather good
in Nepal at employing local staff and knowing what is going on
in the countries (it is relative) but it is very challenging.
I absolutely agree with Mary on this; this is not pre-agreed.
I do think, particularly when we are talking of working in fragile
states, there is a structural problem in DFID's employment practices.
People really do not spend that long in-country. I do not know
what the actual average tenure is of people in jobs, as opposed
to the formal tenure, but it is not long enough; people do not
have enough expertise, they do not learn local languages and I
think that in terms of working in fragile states this is probably
the biggest single thing that DFID should do. Let me say here
(I hope DFID people will forgive me), I know there is an enormous
resistance in DFID to doing anything about this issue because
it is quite inconvenient for a whole lot of people and there are
families and everything else, but if we are going to be serious
about—
Q71 Chairman: Could you put it the
other way round, just to probe you on that (I take your point
entirely): is it difficult to get people who are prepared to make
that kind of commitment, or is your argument that if they went
out and changed that practice they could get people who would
make that commitment?
Professor Moore: Under the current
remuneration system it is difficult to get people to do it and
people will commit for three years, but sometimes people will
leave in less than three years because they get another posting.
However, there are no rewards to spending longer in-country and
learning the local language. I believe, although this is only
on the basis of what people have told me, that there may be problems
in the remuneration structure for local employees such that after
a few years it is no longer very remunerative for them to stay
with DFID, so experienced people will then move on to the World
Bank, to give a recent example. I do not know the details but
I do think this is something that DFID should look at very seriously.
Q72 Mr Lancaster: Whilst you were
talking the lovely little Nepali word which they use to describe
this has come back to me, which is Ghajimaji (?), which means
mixed up, which I think sums the whole thing up. It perhaps then
goes back to your quote earlier. Do you think, given the situation
as you have described it, given the need for local expertise and
given how Nepal is unique as a fragile state, as indeed all fragile
states are (I think that was the point you were making), and given
that in broad terms the current government White Paper is saying
that 50% of all bilateral spending should be on fragile states,
do you think the skills that we are learning in Nepal are potentially
transferable to other fragile states, or is your quote highlighting
that what we are doing in Nepal is simply so unique that we cannot
take those skills elsewhere, and vice versa?
Dr Hobley: I think at a certain
level, of course, they are transferable, but at another level
they are not. Obviously, at the very local level it is very particular.
Just having been in Cambodia, which was a very fragile state and
is still in some regards also very fragile, I think there are
some quite interesting lessons. It is back again to this business
of being able to engage long enough in a country to really understand
where the key actors are operating. They may be all over the place.
Looking at people in Kathmandu, yes, there are power brokers there
but there are so many other power brokers all over Nepal, and
unless you are there long enough it is very hard actually to know
where to go and who to engage with to be effective. Looking at
Cambodia, aid agencies which have been most effective are those
that have remained there long enough to get that knowledge and
understanding, and where their staff have remained there long
enough to build those connections. I think there are things around
processes and types of aid instruments as well that are probably
transferable between these fragile states, but how you engage
on the ground, obviously, is completely specific. So what you
can transfer from Nepal to these other countries is very much
about how you work with local organisations, how you work with
the various political parties but, also, about how you remain
completely responsive to change as it emerges so you do not come
in with great big programmes that necessarily cut across the whole
of Nepal, or the whole of any other country like that, but are
responsive to the very local conditions, which requires a different
type of staff to be able to do that and, as Mick was saying, a
different set of incentives. These are incentives about being
able to engage over the long term, incentives about taking risks
as well, and often with the types of processes that DFID is involved
in it is very difficult sometimes for people to take those types
of risks. I think there are a variety of ways in which there is
a little bit of crossover between these countries.
Professor Moore: Two or three
things. I think, in general, the type of people that DFID recruits
and employs are around right—I do not think they are radically
wrong—because they are, on the whole, pretty much generalists.
DFID is no longer recruiting lots of medics or engineers or people
like that, and even if they do they end up with fairly broad portfolios.
So we have got people who are generalists, which is in a sense
what we want. There is quite a lot of overlap in practice, I think,
with the people who will work in the Foreign Office, which is
another issue but that is probably what we would want, but I think
the issues are incentives. Also, and this is a very difficult
issue to tackle, the whole question of can they take risks? On
the one hand, in fragile states you want people to play a long
game and you want them to be able to take risks and be rewarded,
or not punished. On the other hand, the system that DFID has,
the targets, the country assistance plans, etc, are not terribly
conducive to that kind of thing. This is one of the big contradictions,
I think, of all aid agencies (I am not sure we can crack this
very easily), but I think in certain fragile states we need some
shift away from, as it were, the programmed approach to the more
flexible approach.
Q73 John Battle: I wonder if I could
switch to a policy area of security and justice because DFID,
in their White Paper, suggested that they want to treat access
to justice and security as a basic service, really. I wondered
if you could give us your impression of what has been described
to us when we were there and in other submissions as a culture
of impunity in Nepal, and a lack of sanctions. Do you think it
is a fair impression, and how is it manifest?
Dr Hobley: I think it is a fair
impression. I think there have been a lot of abuses at different
levels that have not been brought to justice, and there is a real
sense, when you talk to people, particularly in the villages,
of fear. It is a growing fear particularly in the Tarai, and people
are afraid to step out of line or to challenge because of what
might happen. It is not just people living in villages but it
is district staff who are being put under huge pressure to deliver
particular services to particular groups and if they do not they
are threatened regularly on their mobile 'phones that awful things
will happen to their families. So there is a sense of fear that
pervades a lot of areas in Nepal.
Q74 John Battle: Fear of whom? Who
does the `phone calling?
Dr Hobley: Fear of criminal gangs;
fear of the youth elements of the political parties—obviously,
the Young Communist League—but it is not just that. There
is this very growing fear of the youth elements of the parties
and not just in the Tarai; it is also come across quite a lot
in the hills now. Again, people are beginning to say they are
afraid to speak out; they are afraid to challenge somebody from
one particular political party because of what might happen to
them. So, in a sense, impunity has come down to a very individual
level in that way that there is a real fear that there is no clear
recourse to justice, and if you stand out and challenge, even
at the most local level, you will be put into trouble for that.
This comes back to this whole thing, because it is not that there
is a political vacuum at the local level; there is not; there
are political parties operating there and controlling the political
level, but because there is no formal local government institutions
and a lot of what goes with that it is much more difficult for
people to see how they move themselves round the system to get
access to services, to get access to benefits and to get access
to justice. So a lot more informal and difficult systems are evolving
and have evolved during the conflict around patronage and who
gets access to what and how. These are, in a sense, becoming reinforced
by the ongoing local government vacuum where political parties
are really now struggling to get down to the very local level
and to control resources as much as they can. So, yes, at the
higher levels I do not have so much experience, but at this very
local level I feel there is a greater sense of insecurity.
Q75 John Battle: So it is the pressure
of political parties bearing down on people and it is affecting
their everyday lives. I get the impression the situation is getting
worse and more oppressive.
Dr Hobley: Yes, it is.
Q76 John Battle: What, then, would
you see the main obstacles in the way of actually improving security?
Where would you go to change things? Where would you start?
Professor Moore: To me, yes, Mary
is absolutely right, there are these problems, but I do not see
that trying to intervene here at any sub-national, local level
is going to be very helpful. What we have got is a government
that, even with a good will, cannot reliably call on the armed
force that any government, ultimately, needs to defend its borders
and keep its criminals out. The army are in barracks; the Maoist
Army are, effectively, in camps. Bring one of those out and you
will know what would happen. The police are not very large; some
of them, particularly the armed police, have a very compromised
reputation as a result of the civil war, and to me the answer
is something has to be done pretty quickly about an agreement
over the army and recruitment into the army and some kind of compromise
between the two sides over this. If a government is in a position
it can call the army out of the barracks then you can get the
police to work, because if the police do not do it they can call
the army.
Q77 Andrew Stunell: You have mentioned
the police and, obviously, in a peaceful society you would expect
that that would be the force. Poor people in the villages, how
often do they see the police? What is their perception of the
police? There also seems to be quite a bit of evidence of direct
political interference with the police, not perhaps at national
level but, maybe, the local political parties, or whatever, and
manipulating outcomes. Do you see a way of moving forward on that?
Professor Moore: To me the way
to move forward is that you have a cabinet and a government that
does reach an agreement over the military and the police and then
that the leaders of the political parties can begin to discipline
their own people. That is part of the problem here, that the political
party leaders have good intentions (many of them do have good
intentions—they do not want to see Nepal fall apart) but
find it very difficult to actually discipline their own cadres,
their own people lower down. I am afraid I do see this as the
army being the central issue here. I do not see how it is going
to be resolved otherwise.
Q78 Andrew Stunell: Okay. In some
other countries DFID has programmes working with the police at
local levels to develop community policing, if you like, to change
the culture within the police force. Are you saying that that
is going to be a waste of time until we have got the central political
and constitutional issues resolved?
Professor Moore: I do not think
it does any harm to have small programmes like that that send
a signal that says: "We are interested in doing this and
if you sort out your other problems we will give you more resources",
but I do not think in terms of real impact on the ground you are
going to see anything for years from small programmes for the
police.
Q79 Andrew Stunell: The justice system—magistracy,
or whatever it might be—the local justice system? Is that
redeemable prior to a constitutional settlement?
Dr Hobley: I do not think I have
got enough experience. The things that I have seen that have worked
quite well are the paralegal committees, where they really do
help at the very local level. It is back to small, local stuff
does make a difference. No, I am not sure the justice system is
redeemable until some of the bigger elements are in place, most
particularly the constitution. Until you see some of these big
planks in place I do not see how you are going to get the right
types of pressures on to the justice system and the political
parties starting to pull back from the way they are using the
justice system. So, no, I think there is a way to go. As I say,
I do not have enough experience to be able to give you clear guidance
on that area.
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