Nepal is a priority country for German development cooperation. GTZ has been working there on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) since 1975, and has maintained its own office in the capital, Kathmandu, since 1979.

The country is on the path to democracy. After ten years of civil war, an election was held to form the Constituent Assembly in 2008. With the subsequent abdication of the king, Nepal was proclaimed a democratic republic. After the formation of the new government, the country now finds itself in a critical phase of its peace process. The first government, a coalition headed by former Maoist rebels, was forced to resign after just nine months.

Due to differences in the parties’ individual agendas as well as the severe fragmentation of the Constituent Assembly, it is hard to build consensus on the central issues that affect the peace process and the future constitution.

As a consequence of the recent conflict, Nepal’s economic growth lags far behind the booming economies of its neighbouring countries. One third of the population lives below the poverty line. The people of Nepal have the lowest life expectancy in Asia, and almost half its children suffer from chronic malnutrition. Although infant and maternal mortality rates have both been halved since the early 1990s, still only around a fifth of births take place in the presence of a doctor or midwife.

Despite these problems, with the help of the international community and the efforts of the government, the country is expected to be able to achieve almost all the Millennium Development Goals. For instance, school enrolment figures are promising and today nine out of ten children are able to attend school. The introduction of a quota system has helped to ensure that one third of the members of the newly elected Constituent Assembly are women.

The restitution of democracy has brought with it high hopes for the improvement of the citizens’ social and economic situation. However, neither the progress made so far, nor the elections, which were judged to be largely free and fair, should be allowed to distract from the fact that the greatest challenges still lie ahead.