English - Support to Participatory Constitution Building in Nepal ...

The long and winding road of state building4. Setting prioritiesOne very difficult question for policy-makers and stakeholders in apost-conflict country like Nepal is: where to start first when everythingis a priority? As chapters 10, 11 and 12 have shown, maintenance ofsecurity and law and order within Nepal has been a major challenge,and it is important that it needs to be addressed urgently in order tocreate a safe and secure Nepal. Does this mean that building the state’ssecurity capacity should be priority number one? Or should the economicrecovery and alleviating poverty (discussed in chapters 3, 4, 5 and 6)be given a higher priority? What about addressing issues such as landbaseddiscriminations and migration and their effects on socio-economicstructure of the society? Any answer to these questions must start witha strong caveat about the intertwined causes and the complex nature ofNepal’s conflict and the range of settlements that have emerged from it.However, in broad terms, there is a growing consensus in the literaturethat three dimensions of policy should be the focus of post-conflictengagement: political processes that legitimate the state; developmentof the framework of the rule of law, including for economic governance;and the re-establishment of a framework of security, including but notlimited to reconstitution of the state security apparatus (see chapters 2,11 and 13 for detailed discussions). Other issues will then take a gradualprocess in which many reforms are implemented simultaneously, but inpiecemeal steps.This set of priorities may be controversial, especially among audiences witha commitment to or focus on economic recovery and transitional justice.However, comparative experience suggests that while transitional justicecan be delayed for some period, restoration of legitimate governance cannot. Similarly, while economic recovery is an important part of prospectsfor stability, research findings by Collier (2008) and others suggest thatearly investments in economic recovery may not reap rewards and thatdelaying intensive spending until core economic and political institutionscan be established will be more effective. As both Forman and Patrick(2000) and Collier (2008) have noted, however, spending patterns of donorstend to be the opposite: lots of upfront spending, with real disbursementproblems and a steady decline in spending and attention after roughlythree to four years – precisely the period when renewed investment mayhave a chance of generating productive economic activity. This is as yetfar from definitive research, however, and warrants significant furtheranalysis. This result is nevertheless definitely something the international308