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Capturing the Role of Civil Society for Urban Sustainability in Nepal

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Abstract

Rapid urbanisation and urban population growth raise problems for sustainability. The unplanned and haphazard patterns of urbanisation, with a scarcity of resources for meeting the basic needs and services of a rapidly burgeoning urban population, are becoming an emerging challenge in the era of climate change—one of the biggest threats facing the communities, cities and nations of the world. Among the places encountering challenges of resource scarcity and urban sustainability are the cities of the Himalayan country Nepal. Its government has been unable to develop sustainably integrated urban development plans and implement them, for various reasons including paucity of data and of evidence-based policy-making, poor political culture and corruption among the political and bureaucratic leadership. In this context, the role of civil society, utilising the practices of local democracy, is invaluable for making cities and communities sustainable. This role, however, has not been given adequate attention in either theory or practice. Employing qualitative research design, this article aims to capture the role of civil society—in particular neighbourhood associations—for urban sustainability, and the challenges and the prospects they have encountered while doing so in Nepal.

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Notes

  1. Composite summary of KIIs.

  2. Composite summary of interviews.

  3. All KIIs agree on it and even existing literature (e.g. Karki, 2004).

  4. Chaupadi is a form of menstrual taboo. When girls and women have periods, they are considered impure; they are forced to live in cattle shed and they are prohibited from participating in normal family activities.

  5. All KIIs confirmed this.

  6. Composite summary of all KIIs.

  7. Interview 1, 8 January, 2022.

  8. Interview 1, 8 January, 2022.

  9. Interview 4, January 9, 2022.

  10. Interview 8, January 24, 2022.

  11. Interview 8, January 24, 2022.

  12. Interview 12, January 15, 2022.

  13. All interviewees confirmed this.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Development Studies, School of Arts, Kathmandu University, Lalitpur, Nepal

    Chandra Lal Pandey

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Correspondence to Chandra Lal Pandey.

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Research Involving Human Participants and/or Animals

The author has followed all ethical procedures during the time of interviews- i.e. taking community development perspectives of the people. All the data collection process fulfils research ethics of informed consent. Data collection process entirely starts after the informed consent of the research participants.

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Pandey, C.L. Capturing the Role of Civil Society for Urban Sustainability in Nepal. Int J Polit Cult Soc 36, 349–365 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-023-09447-0

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