Over the past 20 years much effort and many resources have been invested in the mid-hills of Nepal for rural development programs. One of the major lessons learnt from those efforts was that there is a large need for a rural road network in the country for overall economic development. The government of Nepal has realized this need and put its major emphasis on rural road network development as one of the important sectors within the framework of its Ninth Plan as well as its decentralization efforts. Road building, however, is a big challenge in Nepal, both technically and financially. Technically it is difficult as the country has a very fragile mountain topography and a huge monsoon rainfall, and financially, it is difficult since the country is one of the poorest countries in the world and the available resources are very limited. Moreover, rampant poverty exists in rural Nepal, and a rural road programme therefore should have the objectives of not only providing the access to the rural populace, but also being a tool towards self-help capacity building and poverty alleviation for the betterment of their socio-economic living conditions. The paper tries to present the overall scenario of rural road development efforts in Nepal and an innovative approach towards sustainable management of rural road asset in the country towards sustainable livelihood of the rural poor. (a)
Abstract