ABSTRACT
The pace of urbanization is highest in Nepal among the countries of South Asia. This has led to economic growth. The contribution of the urban sector to GDP is increasing fast. Cities compete in attracting investments. They are suffering from acute shortage of infrastructure and services. This has made it difficult to sustain the growth impulses, which have made cities less competitive with increasing exclusion. Adjustments take place to sustain competitiveness at the cost of inclusiveness.
Urbanization has helped a key role in reducing poverty in Nepal. The inclusiveness of cities has helped to make it sustainable in the past. However, the opportunities created by it are not used for making cities more inclusive. One of its challenges at present is growing exclusion. There is a lack of inclusiveness in service delivery as evidenced by the poor level of urban services and ever-growing slum areas. The paper deals with urbanization process in Nepal and analyzes the trend. It views inclusive development as a necessary condition for managing the provision of urban services. It explores the causes of the increasing trend of exclusion in service delivery. It highlights the distributive role of the cities and tries to show how the poor and peripheral regions are mainstreamed into the national development process.
The paper deals with the emerging issues of inclusive development in the context of rapid urbanization in Nepal. It highlights the inclusive element of urban development as an integral part of the larger urbanization process. It explores the characteristics of an inclusive city. It highlights the potentials of an inclusive city in making development more sustainable. It works on the relationship between inclusiveness and city clusters. It shows how inclusive nature of urban development helped the growth of the Kathmandu Valley in the past. It also shows how this can be replicated in the shaping of new urban centres and in the renewal of traditional towns.
Cities were never found to show any diseconomies of scale, as they became able to contain and sustain the growing disparity in a political way. In the wake of global competition, the costs in terms of human sufferings of rapid urban growth are generally ignored. The notion of competitiveness is a potent one. Its adverse impacts on the poor will be reduced through inclusiveness. Cities should rely on their collaborative advantages in order to sustain their competitiveness. The towns in the foothills and the terai could be encouraged to form city clusters and growth corridors to enhance inclusive urban growth. The paper suggests for the inclusive development of the Biratnagar corridor based on trans-boundary collaboration.
The paper aims to explore ways and means of transforming Nepal’s economy through increased investments in the lead activities of urban regions with comparative advantages that promote inclusiveness. It deals with the ways and means of halting the trend of increasing disparity with regional imbalances and formation of slums and squatters. It explores the causes of increasing exclusion. It shows how the participation of the people in service delivery will reduce this. In order to use the opportunities created by urbanization, it is necessary to invest in lead activities with high forward and backward linkages. The paper works on how to make a breakthrough in creating more resilient and more self-reliant urban economies. Future costs of urbanization are likely to increase at a rapid rate because of depletion of resources. The paper examines the fiscal deficit of municipalities; and suggests strategies for reducing it. There are problems related to fiscal sustainability due to exclusion. The situation will improve as more and more people get integrated into the process of service delivery. For this, it is necessary to support cities’ to build inclusiveness into their investment agenda. The paper tries to identify what investments would make them more inclusive. It deals with the changes in governance and financing required for enhancing inclusiveness. It deals with how investments should be planned for inclusive service delivery and fiscal sustainability of cities.
The government has not been able to appreciate the sustainability role of cities. The paper underscores the need for raising awareness; draws inferences from the way cities respond to state actions; and examines the role of the government in making cities more inclusive. It finally drives at policy-making for the promotion of such cities through a two-pronged strategy. The first is managing the cluster economy of Kathmandu in the light of increasing exclusion and the need for deconcentration. The second is the promotion of inclusive city clusters along the viable corridors.