Embedded Files
At a glance
At a glance
About 35 minutes, including a 15-minute reading. By the end of this lesson you will be able to
describe how political change has shaped civil society in Nepal
explain the roles of international funding and relations with the state
use survey evidence to discuss inclusion in Nepal's NGO sector
Nepal's civil society expanded after political openings, adapted during conflict and disaster, and entered new relationships with government after federalism. The global funding relationships from Lesson 4.2 are part of this story, but their meaning becomes clearer when placed beside Nepal's own institutions and political turning points.
Political change and civil society
Political change and civil society
Nepal's associational life includes longstanding institutions such as guthi trusts and rotating savings groups. After the 1990 People's Movement restored multiparty democracy, formal NGO registration expanded. During the Maoist conflict from 1996 to 2006, organizations worked amid violence and restricted access. The peace process widened space for rights and inclusion work. The 2015 earthquake increased relief and reconstruction activity, while the 2015 constitution and federal system added provincial and local governments as partners, funders and regulators.
Several tensions run through this history. Traditional forms of association sit alongside modern NGOs. International funding has expanded the sector and drawn suspicion from governments wary of foreign influence. Organizations balance autonomy against close relations with the state, and service delivery against advocacy.
These periods did not affect every organization in the same way. Service providers, rights groups, membership associations and informal community institutions faced different opportunities and constraints. The timeline should therefore guide questions about a specific organization rather than stand in for its history.
Who NGOs serve, and who leads them
Who NGOs serve, and who leads them
Political openings created room for organizations to speak in the name of excluded groups. Whether those groups also gained authority inside NGOs is a separate question.
Among the 245 responding NGOs, 81% said they served Dalits and 63% said they served Indigenous peoples. A separate analysis compares leaders' caste or ethnic identity with each group's population share. Khas-Arya leaders were overrepresented by roughly 12 to 23 percentage points across NGO registration cohorts since the 1990s. Indigenous leaders were underrepresented by about 4 to 12 points and Dalit leaders by about 1 to 4 points (KC, Pariyar and Sapkota, forthcoming). These comparisons describe representation in the available sample; they do not by themselves explain why the gaps arose.
Example. NGOs during COVID-19
Example. NGOs during COVID-19
The pandemic brought these relationships among state direction, donor resources and community need into one immediate crisis.
During the pandemic, the government directed NGOs to prioritize groups such as senior citizens, people with disabilities, children, and pregnant and breastfeeding women. Many NGOs shifted to relief work for excluded communities, often with uncertain funding and restrictions on movement (KC and Bhandari, 2021).
Read
Read
KC, D., & Bhandari, B. (2021). COVID-19 and Nepali civil society organizations. Impact, responses, and opportunities. NGO Federation of Nepal. https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PA00XX8M.pdf
The report is free to read. Read the executive summary and the section on serving the excluded and vulnerable (page 34).
Go further. KC, D. Civil society in Nepal. Evolution and contemporary issues. In E. Bloodgood & A. Domaradzka (Eds.), The local history of civil society. Global perspectives. Georgetown University Press, forthcoming.
Explore the data
Explore the data
Dipendra KC's Nepal Civil Society Data Explorer presents 58,764 NGO registration records compiled from Nepal's Social Welfare Council. The data cover BS 2034–2082 (AD 1977–2025); BS 2082 is ongoing and incomplete.
Begin with Overall Evolution and compare the three phases of NGO growth. Then filter by province or working sector and examine whether the national pattern still holds. The Sector Concentration, Renewal & Active Status, and Funding tabs can help you distinguish growth in registrations from organizational continuity and resource flows.
Try it
Try it
Return to the contrast between public purpose and internal power that opened Unit 1. Write a few lines on each question.
What might explain the gap between whom NGOs say they serve and who leads them?
What could organizations, donors or governments do to narrow it?
How would you check representation on the board and staff of the organization you are studying?
Putting theory to work: Add staffing to the picture
Putting theory to work: Add staffing to the picture
The explorer above shows how the picture changes when we count registrations, renewals, locations and funding. Staffing offers another view of the sector. Three surveys of the more formalized, aid-connected part of the sector found a median of six to eleven employees, with roughly 80% of organizations employing fewer than 25 people. Applying a mean of 17 staff to about 1,427 annual recipients of foreign aid gives an estimate of roughly 24,000 paid workers in that subgroup. That figure is useful only if we keep its boundary in view. The surveys represent formal, aid-connected NGOs much better than the larger community-based majority, so the estimate should not be extended to the whole sector.
Read What is the size of Nepali NGOs? alongside Counting Nepal's NGOs , Do NGOs go where they are needed? and The “Dollar Kheti” Myth . Together, they show why sector size depends on whether we mean organizations, geographic reach, funding or employment.
Capstone evidence brief. Use the explorer and readings to make one carefully bounded claim about Nepali civil society. Support it with two indicators from different sources, giving the year, geography, unit of analysis and sample or administrative population for each. End with the limitation that matters most for your conclusion.
Key takeaway
Key takeaway
Nepal's political openings and international support helped formal civil society grow, but growth did not distribute authority evenly. The evidence therefore supports two conclusions at once: NGOs widely report serving marginalized groups, while leadership remains concentrated among more privileged groups.
Check your thinking
Check your thinking
Possible explanations include differences in education, language skills and networks, which Bourdieu would call cultural and social capital, as well as founders recruiting people like themselves and donors preferring leaders who match their own expectations.
Possible responses include board diversity policies, leadership development for people from marginalized groups, and seats for community members on boards. Part 3 of the project template asks for board composition by gender, caste and ethnicity where the organization discloses it, so you can check representation directly.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse