Foreign aid in waste management: a case of Kathmandu, Nepal

Four decades of reorganization of waste management in Kathmandu, Nepal funded by foreign aid failed to provide adequate services and led to the return of riverbank waste disposal by 1994. To assess the results of foreign aid in waste management in Kathmandu from 1970 to 2010, the researchers utilized qualitative and field methods and examined three major international projects sponsored by the governments of Germany, India, and Japan. Results suggest that German aid was too technical, undermining municipal capacity and burdening the city with a second waste disposal institution while failing to sustain its own infrastructure. The Indian project lacked focus and follow up programs and encumbered a poor country with outdated equipment that did not meet the local needs. Japanese aid depended on wrong assumptions, stressing costly landfilling that employed heavy machinery and upgraded equipment inappropriate for local conditions. The study recommends that Nepal institute bottom-up and participatory style of waste management that identifies where the resources will come from, who will manage them, and how they will be sustained.