Great Himalayan Fairy Tale (REDUX)

 (Advisory: The following is a critical and hopefully realistic assessment--don't mind--with the intention of holding aid entrepreneurs' feet to the fires while they meddle in foreign lands with large sums of money and leverage, little oversight and few to no language and culture skills--unfortunately, a lethal recipe that leads to suffering for the common people while the interlopers enjoy a lifestyle in the top echelons of society) 

Photo by Alonzo Lyons

I am certainly not the only one who sees the Great Himalayan Trail Trick(?) to be a well-funded, Himalayan snow job. Although, I might be one of the few Himalayaphiles willing to call it out publicly (many others have shared their disbelief with me in private), especially in the face of a moneyed industry that has grown up around the fictional line on a map. A corps of well-paid and articulate people have worked feverishly to will the very concept into being with exuberant energy and talent despite Himalayan obstacles and Himalayan chasms and a lack of a any semblance of a contiguous trail.

Even the talented gentleman who wrote the eponymous guidebook makes a striking confession. In his Acknowledgements he mentions the three Sherpa guides who made it possible by joining him 'every step of the way'. 

Three Sherpa?!
Ever step of the way?!

This is a skilled, veteran trekker with many seasons of experience in the highlands of Nepal. If he needed three Sherpa guides every step of a cross-country journey to find the way, negotiate logistics and technical sections, in other words, survival, then what hope is there for the average trekker to pick up a guidebook and go?

In fact, an elite, world-class trail runner tried just that and was dangerously off course within days, losing personal items and forced to return to Kathmandu by vehicle, perhaps lucky something worse did not happen.
Again, if an elite, battle-hardened trail runner was immediately lost, then what hope is there for the average trekker?

Photo by Alonzo Lyons

"One Trail to Rule Them All" was a slogan put forth with a grandiose, kingly name at a time when Nepal had just ousted a 239 year-old tyrannical crown--perhaps a more appropriate motto during that dynamic time might have been One Trail to Unite Nepal or even The Trail to Unite Them All. After all, the country was just out of a ten-year civil war and working to come together as a newly born democratic republic. Yet, even my above alternate names would miss the mark considerably until there actually is a trail. 

There is no one such trail or even a contiguous series of trails to venture cross-country in any sort of efficient way. If a person is lucky and with adept guides and tremendous logistical and technical gear and support (arranged with a great amount of funds), then they might be able to trek across the country from the eastern to western border, but certainly not on any singular trail, or even one contiguous route linking trails. There simply are not trails linking other trails in a number of remote areas even as maps might hazardously make it seem unless some very lengthy detours and wild zig-zags are undertaken to connect sections (such detours are not indicated on any of these maps).

Photo by Alonzo Lyons

Moreover, the seasonal window for crossing secluded, technical, mountain passes on a cross-country high traverse is relatively short and through isolated, rugged, uninhabited highland areas along the ramparts of the Himalaya. Spending time in this no-man's land at altitude including traversing technical passes requires not only the aforementioned expert guides with technical skills but a good deal of supporting gear and food as well as staff to help with both and not just route-finding. Certainly, such an expedition-style journey is outside the ken and budget of casual trekkers and most veteran trekkers for that matter.

Additionally, there is no Lower GHT. It is simply a conceptual line on a map, and I personally know the two guys who casually placed that line on a map. They did it from an office in inner-city Kathmandu far away from any remote trails. One of them never trekked in his life, the other manages a company that specializes in taking foreigners to Annapurna, Langtang and Everest and did no recce whatsoever in the majority of the country. 

Please don't get me wrong. People have hiked cross-country, and of course that is totally possible. Some people did near cross-country walks decades before the 'launching' of this posh project, but no one has hiked the so-called Lower GHT route because it  simply does not exist (the highly sponsored and talented group who hiked border-to-border followed a myriad of trails and not an advertised route). 

To the credit of SNV (the Dutch INGO that funds along with help from DFID, the aid wing of the United Kingdom, the heavy promotion and dazzling salaries of a multitude of people both foreign and domestic working on promoting the GHT fantasy), they have retreated from 'One Trail to Rule Them All' realizing at least that the initial slogan was a total fiction, although it is astonishing that the motto was vetted in the first place with the many paid experts that were on board.

Photo by Alonzo Lyons

Further retreats have been made, yet whatever the amorphous conception has been molded into at this point, with all due respect, the cash-infused notions of the GHT and Lower-GHT are nothing like the names suggest. I humbly request that people affiliated with the swanky campaign might reconsider associating their good names with it no matter what the financial rewards might be.

At this point, with all due respect, great Himalayan truth needs to surpass all else now more than ever as Nepal re-builds post-quake and I/NGOs and government agencies, agents, and accomplices might do well to consider a new, more transparent paradigm. If nothing else, then do it for the safety of trekkers who might be fooled into attempting a long-haul hike on a non-existent route.

Follies like this prompted a Nepali journalist to cry out, "Does Nepal need DFID or does DFID need Nepal?!" It is a fair enough question, especially for a citizen of a country burdened by indefinite 'aid'. Nepali journalists should turn the heat up on interlopers by continuing to ask valid, hard-hitting questions of these outsiders meddling in their homeland and demand credible, evidence-based answers to their operations as well as a time frame for withdrawal.

Notwthstanding humanitarian quake relief, Nepalis might do very best with the opportunity to choose their own programs and own targets without outside intervention that often enables dysfunctional elements of the status quo and therefore, empowers and embeds the wrong people while dis-empowering and disenfranchising the citizenry through mis-governance and paralyzing entitlements. 

Removing the deadweight, malignant establishment players and entities will be the best anyone could possibly imagine for development in Nepal. It would allow the Nepali people the chance to follow their own dreams with their own capabilities and efforts unencumbered by donors, diplomats, politicians and an entitled gang.

Many cheers for your patience and consideration regarding my comments above. Please keep on trekking, sightseeing and adventuring in Nepal, an outdoors paradise offering endless cultural and natural treasures along with a legendary hospitality that will charm visitors to this enchanting Himalayan Nirvana. And to the misguided of the aid workers, donors and I/NGO staff who've traveled overseas to change a society, please give renewed consideration to the trekker's maxim, "The Himalaya might change you, please don't change the Himalaya."

Photo by Alonzo Lyons

#DonorDarlings, #globaldev, #deadaid, #myGHTbs, #AidBully #Nepal #trekNepal #Himalaya

All Nepal for All Nepalis -- 'The Time has Come'

"Nepal is not here to satisfy your saviour-complexes or act out your political adventures. Colonial lords should know this." Tweet by Rubeena Mahato, 19th November 2015
https://twitter.com/rubeenaa/status/667346976187351040

Indefinite aid is not in the best interests of Nepal. Nepal needs less foreign interference (from both near & afar). After nearly six decades, isn't it time to consider phasing out foreign aid schemes run by people non-fluent in language and culture?

Time for all of Nepal for all Nepalis.

The Time Has Come

A Fact's a Fact

It Belongs to Them

Let's Give it Back

--from Beds Are Burning, protest song by the Aussie band Midnight Oil

Rockabilly cover of Beds Are Burning 

Nobel Prize Winner Gets It...and you, gentle aid agents?

"Mr. Deaton is a strong critic of foreign aid. He believes that the approximately $5 trillion given by governments of rich countries to poor countries over the past 50 years has undercut good governance by making poor countries’ leaders less accountable to their own citizens." --excerpt from piece by David Henderson, The Wall Street Journal

Angus Deaton, 2015 Nobel Prize winner in Economic Sciences, gets it. How about you gentle aid agents? With all due respect, please be sensible and awaken to the reality of the stifling effects of aid despite decades of good intentions.

Unfortunately, aid tends to endow (knowingly and most often unknowingly) dysfunctional elements of the status quo including ruling gangs with unearned status and leverage. That perpetuates and prolongs the very problems that aid is endeavoring to solve and dis-empowers people. Despite the best of intentions (which are not in doubt), the people endure chronic poverty and its lethal effects.

For once, will the aid industry at least consider that they might be doing some harm? This question is not unreasonable, especially when hundreds of millions of people are suffering every day and have been suffering for decades upon decades for want of progress, health and opportunity. Might intervention be causing harm? Should not that be the first question of all before an aid entrepreneur packs his/her bags to effect change in a distant foreign land?

Until then, until we see clear, transparent, and objective proof worthy of trillions of dollars and years and years of critical time gone--lost time and lost opportunity borne by an impoverished people--people without a defender, without an advocate, without a champion, without representation--then, I will continue to believe the aid machine is generally misguided and tends to abet the very people keeping the poor undeveloped and paralyzed in failed governance and failed aid folly.

If foreigners truly want to assist and cannot resist trying; if they believe that they can effect change in a far-flung land (typically, enjoying high salaries that put them in the 1% of the very people that they aim to ‘aid’), then the best thing imaginable for development and progress would be to free the people from oppressive and corrupt governance including unethical bureaucrats from top to bottom and entitled gangs with unearned privileges. Without state and foreign interference, then the people could pursue their own dreams and ambitions with their own talents and capabilities.

Wall Street Journal - VIDEO (most interesting from 2:30)

Structural representation of the folly of aid? photo © Alonzo Lyons, all rights reserved 

#Angus, #Deaton, #NobelPrize, #Economics, #AidRiddenNepal, #DonorDarlings, #FreeNepal, #DambisaMoyo, #AidBully, #AidEntrepreneur, #Corruption, #DeadAid, #HowtToRobAfrica, #LetMyPeopleGo, #Nepal, #YellFire, #UNDPNepal, #SNVNepal, #USAIDNepal, #DFIDNepal, #WorldBankAsia

Billy the Bully?

Bill Gates' harsh response to a thoughtful, ethically valid question reveals how out of touch he is with data-driven evidence on African aid (despite a fishy claim of reading Dr. Dambisa Moyo's book, Dead Aid).

Dr. Moyo obviously is not against vaccinations and saving children’s lives. Framing it that way is Bill's intimidation tactic that unjustly attacks Moyo and overlooks a compelling message about the downside of aid that she points out with very well-spoken scholarship (surprising for an economist) with credible documentation.

With all due respect, Bill might be more judicious than to allege her book 'promotes evil' (whatever evil means to him or anyone). It is not only off the mark, it smacks of colonial self-righteousness, doesn't it?

Bill is a foreigner trying to effect change in faraway lands while relying on biased people with vested interests (i.e., people keen on his payouts). He does not come anywhere close to Moyo's expertise and experience. Dr. Moyo is Zambian and backs up what she is doing with first-hand experience living in the African continent, prima-facie observation and reliable research full of hard-hitting facts.

Moyo's scholarship is not devaluing all of  Bill's campaigns -- read the book, Bill, listen to Dr. Moyo; you are doing good work, too. It is not  you versus her…again, read the book and consider the fact-filled evidence before commenting about it-- if not, then continue to be blind to her revelations and the reality on the ground -- a deathly reality for those in dire situations facing the pox of chronic poverty that aid often abets, especially by endowing dysfunctional elements of the status quo.

Moyo is a solo voice of reason opposing many others including players with deep pockets and moneyed interests. Countervailing the overbearing power and leverage that money infuses those players with takes moxie. She is championing long-oppressed people and is ringing the alarms about what has been happening for decades in her homeland continent of Africa.

Over a trillion dollars of aid has not proven to increase economic growth and reduce poverty. On the other hand, aid funds have, in large measure, helped to entrench dysfunctional systems that dis-empower the very people they are meant to uplift. "Let my people go!" she cries out. 

She is clear and lucid for an economist, and Bill will understand her if he tries. I expect more of this intelligent, talented and kind-hearted guy. He is uninformed about the soul-crushing downside of aid that kills development and growth with profound, lethal repercussions in the lives of the local people. He would do well to get beyond a do-no-wrong bubble and consider Dr. Moyo's wise views and abundance of evidence if he truly wants to serve the people of Africa.

Isn't it time to start giving priority to commerce over indefinite aid that debilitates rather than inspires? Let the local people chase their own dreams and ambitions with their own talents.

Moyo heroically connects development issues directly to aid using real evidence -- not easy to do with a swarm of outside interests and well-paid bullies tearing her down.

She is totally brilliant and the ad hominem attacks are shameful.

#BillGates, #AidBully, #DeadAid, #GatesFoundation, #DonorDarlings, #GroundOnDown, #HowtToRobAfrica,  #LetMyPeopleGo, #DambisaMoyo

'Soul-stirring Mourning'

Doing my darnedest to hold aid workers' feet to the fire of greater awareness, awareness of their profound effects in Nepal and beyond. With all due respect, this link is suggested reading for the foreign cohort intervening at all levels in Nepal. From my humble experience, intervention often supports (directly, and most often, indirectly) a dysfunctional and overpowering status quo and contributes to the endless political bandh (closure) that Nepal endures with prolonged economic strife and deathly suffering.

The country is filled with aid workers rushing in and around to cover for the government and inadvertently funding establishment goons with unmerited entitlements.

With external support and endowments, the ruling gang does not have to be accountable to the general population as they would have to be in a liberal democracy.

The country and majority of her people face crippling economic stagnation and dire poverty, and because of a lack of opportunity, the tragic option that many impoverished citizens turn to is to escape the frying pan of the motherland for the fires of work in faraway nations -- often, nations with dismal human rights records -- emigrant workers from Nepal to The Gulf and Malaysia have virtually no legal status and no representation...a grisly recipe for exploitation and suffering.

A migrant worker's journey ends with a coffin and soul-stirring mourning

#freeNepal, #donordarlings, #Bandh, #Nepal, #exploit, #modernslavery, #YellFire, #AidRiddenNepal, #AidBully

Rebuilding Nepal: The rubble must go -- A Skeptic's Take

With all due respect to the talented author, her primary sources for the Al Jazeera piece (Rebuilding Nepal: The rubble must go) are organizations with vested interests--NGOs, the UN, the government—entities that have earned skepticism over decades of aid-industry ventures in Nepal. Rather than pay them more heed, the citizens of this great nation would do well to hold these groups up to greater scrutiny and demand transparency and hard evidence with quantifiable metrics, e.g., poverty reduction, worthy of 5-6 decades of aid and billions of dollars spent including dazzling salaries that put aid entrepreneurs in the top 1% of Nepal society, the very society that they endeavor to assist.

More reliable and convincing sources of information in this piece about the afflicted areas would be residents themselves from the rural areas most affected by the quake. A relatively small percentage of Nepal was badly damaged by this natural tragedy and people in these areas are receiving humanitarian aid and are also working together as communities to rebuild themselves. These worst hit areas will likely need a lot of continued assistance but this fraction of Nepal is not representative of the entire country regarding reconstruction needs by a wide margin.

It is extraordinary to read of the “urgent…task of reconstruction…small window of time… winter, which will be particularly brutal” juxtaposed with Executive Director of the National Society for Earthquake Technology’s statement, “Timeframe is not an issue…Nepal can be rebuilt in the five years outlined”.

It would be more convincing to hear from voices outside of the organizations that have monopolized aid. Despite the small pockets of Nepal in real need of humanitarian relief, the whole country seems to be portrayed as in dire need of outside help. An unsavory side-effect of that broad depiction is the complete sabotage of one of Nepal’s most vital industries—the hardworking tourism sector. Painting the picture as one of dire need  (e.g., “debris still blocking streets”) unnecessarily scares off potential visitors and is killing an integral industry that could immediately endeavor to revive Nepal’s post-quake economy.

.

The graphic portrayals though meant to help bring in more aid funds do real harm to many people especially, those who rely on tourism and their dependents. From hoteliers, restaurateurs, taxi drivers, goods sellers and suppliers, guides and porters, families and dependents and everyone else in between Kathmandu and tourist destinations and back again, such misrepresentations cause harm.

The following links are a bit scathing but at least might provide a counter-perspective to the implausible pleas in the Al Jazeera article for more money…Can these organisations iron out issues among themselves and get to work with the 4.4 billion USD that has already been pledged? This amount itself can scar Nepal indelibly if it goes to the wrong gang…and elements of that gang are very much aware of the wildly lucrative opportunity born from the true victims of tragedy.

Politely Don't Believe the Hype
&

Working from the Ground on Down

#FreeNepal, #AidBully, #AidEntrepreneur, #AidRiddenNepal, #DonorDarlings, #NepalQuake, #Nepal

"Working from the ground on down"

'Nepal isn't Haiti' aid organizations are urging donors to believe.

They have good reason to be insistent...a vulgar amount of money is at stake--billions...

...billions...

The aid industry is even bullying the media to not report on misdeeds, that is, to not compare Nepal's aid paradigm to Haiti's fiasco--lest potential donors become justifiably wary and pull back. Aid entrepreneurs seem to be fitfully concerned about losing 'their' money and losing a chance at a financial jackpot wrought by a horrific tragedy.

And with a game-changing amount, then perhaps Nepal might become so disfigured as to be rendered unrecognizable--sunk forever if the wrong people receive as much power and leverage as a pornographic windfall would afford the ruling establishment--ever more leverage and more sway over a long-disenfranchised, impoverished citizenry.

"Nepal is not Haiti"...is supposed to reassure potential donors...

Actually, the aid scene in general in Nepal is likely worse than Haiti, and for that matter, perhaps worse than anywhere in the world. Are aid entrepreneurs willing to truly see the suffering behind mounds of expensive paperwork, reams of photo opportunities...to bear witness to the appalling fashion show behind the clutter and faux-scenery of a donor darling playground? For anyone with eyes to see, suffering is palpable in Nepal and deathly. Most donors and aid workers do not see it, pretend not to see it or worst of all, blindly believe that they are championing the very people being oppressed by the establishment, an establishment that aid helps to endow.

Therefore, I kindly request evidence-based reassurances that the aid business is on track and on task. After six decades and billions of dollars and endless schemes, can the aid industry please present evidence in their own defense worthy of six decades of otherwise lost time, effort and money? For example, in flagrante delicto many hydro projects have been funded (profanely funded) without materializing...that money didn't just disappear into thin air...the people should track and chase down and prosecute every last accomplice for stripping them of years and years and years of prosperity and the pox of poverty that took its place. Poverty and its effects include hunger, illness, educational failings and much more up to death associated with it and its lost opportunities.

For once, will the aid industry at least consider that they might be doing some harm (rather than curiously proclaiming that they are not Haiti)? This question is not unreasonable, especially when tens of millions of people are suffering every day and have been suffering for decades upon decades for want of progress, health and opportunity. Will the aid industry ever consider it might be doing some harm? Should not that be the first question of all before an aid entrepreneur packs his/her bags to effect change in a distant foreign land?

Until then, until we see clear, transparent, and objective proof worthy of billions of dollars and years and years of critical time wasted--lost time and lost opportunity borne by an impoverished people--people without a defender, without an advocate, without a champion, without representation--then, I will continue to believe the aid industry is generally misguided in Nepal and beyond. Hopefully, I might, even if in the smallest way, be part of a growing voice for overdue change in aid to Nepal...otherwise, taken as a whole, aid tends to support the very people keeping Nepal undeveloped and paralyzed in failed folly. In sum, aid, taken as a whole (from my anecdotal viewpoint), probably could not have done more harm to Nepal had that been its aim.

It tends to subsidize the entitlement gang, political establishment and government functionaries and does so for the worst. Together they generally have drowned the hopes of millions of Nepalis day after day, year after year, decade after decade and so on. Foreign agents tend to align with precisely the wrong gang, prolonging and perpetuating deathly problems. I would love with all my heart for the sake of Nepal and Nepali people to be proved wrong about aid...until then I will fumble along as I speak out against it (and hopefully speak up for Nepal and Nepali people) as much as I can.

And what now is most needed post-quake? In terms of rebuilding in rural areas, structures in the hills collapsed, and mostly homes need to be rebuilt--and many have been already.

This rebuilding is something local people are adept at as a community without much outside support. Many have already accomplished this rebuilding of their own homes through their own and community-wide efforts. This is something they have done since time immemorial without a single rupee or nod from any outside source or consultation. 

Still, pleas for schools pull at donors' heartstrings. What human with red blood can withstand a plea for a school--ultimately for kids, for education and opportunity...Schools have become the target as they are the most likely to reach a soft spot in potential donors' judgment.

But what exactly will be rebuilt here with regards to schools..will they become the same as they were pre-quake...many empty shells where education was desired but not often delivered for want of teachers, staff, salaries, supplies and for want of material, administrative and economic support necessary for a school to function. Basically, will it just be a building with the name of 'school' on the outside?

What I mean to point out is, what of these schools after they are built? Who will staff them, supply salaries and instructional materials and a decent curriculum? Material support was a major issue in most schools pre-quake. Who will follow up once the newly erected structures are in place? Or, is the structure the only goal and education an assumed side-effect that has been greatly missing all along in many rural areas? Is this overlooked or do aid workers believe education will materialize on its own after a basic framework is established (and after hefty salaries and photo opportunities are collected by I/NGO entrepreneurs and administrators)?

Certainly, outside funds might make re-building, education, and nearly everything else easier if they truly hit the target in a transparent way and have proper, unbiased oversight and rigorous follow-up and most importantly community support, too. And that is precisely what is suspicious about the aid paradigm up to now...how infrequently they have hit targets (do most of them even know their targets if not the local language and cultures they are affecting?) and can provide concrete stories of success.

Moreover, at this point, it is not going to kill anyone to not receive more outside funds, whereas, on the other hand, a vast amount of money that helps subsidize and endow a dysfunctional system could potentially do vast harm as it continues to oppress the majority of vulnerable people in a way that results in illness, suffering and yes, even death...one outrageously tragic example, over thirty Nepalis are coming home in body bags a month after perishing abroad in hideous work mostly in Malaysia and the Gulf for lack of opportunity at home--a direct outcome of the flawed establishment that is greatly enabled and endowed by the aid industry. Knowingly and most often unknowingly aid is helping to keep a dysfunctional system in place.

No, now is not the time to defend Nepal's aid paradigm as 'not Haiti' --if that is the best claim and the catchphrase the aid business chooses to put forth right now. They already have 100,000-plus spokespeople on salaries in favor of aid (i.e., Nepal has over 100,000 I/NGOs and therefore, that many CEOs of I/NGOs). Given the tide in favor of a dubious industry, that industry might very well benefit from a few more critics.

In fact, focusing on the rare few in the aid industry doing things right does a disservice to the Nepali people at a time when billions are at stake and more oversight and care is most needed, not less. Overlooking the faults is not the answer if it means overlooking the suffering, the backbreaking suffering that aid has been a party to for the foreseeable past.

Now is the time to #FreeNepal and demand of I/NGOs at the very least transparency (in amounts received, amounts spent and on what and substantial proof of it including amounts of salaries of all members in said aid organization), accountability, oversight...or better yet, free Nepal of foreign intervention altogether by throwing a malnourished, abused baby out with the bathwater and pull the plug on a dysfunctional status quo rather than inoculating the zombies with billions...billions...

Lack of money is likely not the root of problems, nor are funds the likely solution. Will more money lead to any resolution and progress and if so, can the aid industry provide substantial proof of that?  
Until evidence arrives, more funding seems to have had the opposite effect...which leaves me to ponder the earnestness in proclaiming that 'Nepal is not Haiti'? 

"The [aid industry] doth protest too much, methinks" -- paraphrase of Hamlet, Shakespeare

"There are good deeds and good intentions and the distance between them is as far as heaven and hell...and you're working your way from the ground on down." --Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals

Live from Mars, Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals
"There are good deeds and good intentions and the distance between them is a far as heaven and hell."