Former expats in Nepal’s foreign aid industry reflect on the identity crises that came with their careers
By Nick Kraft
Nepal is an aid-dependent country, with aid accounting for 23 percent of its national budget. The money translates into a heavy presence of foreign aid or development workers in Nepal. Many arrive with intentions to support communities and many become jaded or disillusioned along the way. I was one of them.
To better understand the lifecycle of the development worker and my own experience in Nepal, I interviewed former colleagues, expats who have worked with various development actors and on various projects in Nepal. The common thread in their stories and mine: uncertainty about how appropriate it is for foreigners to be leading development work abroad.
A critical assessment begins with the motivations expats have for moving to Nepal in the first place.
More than white savior
The white savior complex is often used as an explanation for why foreigners end up in development work: the desire to rescue; to uplift; to impose solutions on a local community that have somehow remained out of reach, only attainable with the support of a foreigner.
The white savior phenomenon is nothing new. It has been documented and explored at length in publications like the Atlantic, and it has been identified as an obsession of Hollywood scripts. It is top of mind for development expats worried about absorbing the decision-making power of local communities.
While this phenomenon has become well known and often referenced, what I’ve found in my conversations is that motivations to contribute to a development project are more nuanced and frankly, spontaneous.
“A lot of resources went into the development of me as a person,” Chris, an architect and former development professional who spent five years in Nepal tells me. “I think everyone has a responsibility to pay it forward.”
Chris’ decision to accept a job with a nonprofit in Nepal was a reaction to his work in New York being unaligned with a deeper value system. The coincidence of the nonprofit founder being from his hometown, and her push to build a school as he was gaining skills as an architect provided a bridge at the right place and right time to explore a more fulfilling opportunity.
For Chris, it was also a practical choice.
“As an architect we have ‘technical’ skills or practical skills that translate into very literal built objects or interventions,” Chris tells me. I heard something similar from Franny, a teacher who spent three years in Nepal’s nonprofit industry.
“I ended up going there because of a social connection and I ended up moving there because I felt that I had enough experience as an educator,” Franny says.
Reflecting on her first offer to start teaching in Nepal, Franny tells me she was relieved that she initially said no.
“When I arrived, it was more than being an enthusiastic volunteer. I had more of an intentional reason for being there. I felt I actually knew what I was doing. Even though, obviously, I didn’t because you never know what’s going to happen when you go there.”
The underbelly
The uncertainty that Franny alludes to gets at the underbelly of development work in Nepal. Raj, a former expat in Nepal who spent three years in the country in varying capacities with the UN expands on this point.
“Initially, you begin with such excitement,” Raj says. “But then the more you dive in and the more you think about the values that you want to pursue, it feels almost hypocritical in terms of how institutions are built.”
Shortly after taking on a leadership role at my organization, I began attending higher-level meetings with my Nepali colleague. Representing a development organization as a six-foot tall white person, living in a primarily brown country where the average height is five-foot-one, sent a very loud, inescapable message. That message was returned with open doors our organization had never seen before. Scheduling a meeting with the Ministry of Health now simply took walking into the office, my height and color granting us an immediate audience.
This was advantageous for our work, but I had failed to recognize and articulate what that downside of this message was until about a year into my new role.
Raj pinpointed my recognition exactly, “there was a lot of disillusionment from that perspective, of saying ‘I’m this young person from a different part of the world, who am I to come in and help people?’”
At that point, I understood I was perpetuating imbalances of power between what is known as the global north, which includes wealthier nations like the United States, and what is considered the global south, which includes poorer nations like Nepal.
The value of reflection
While the private sector gets the lionshare of criticism for being short-sighted, the development sector suffers from its own lack of patience. The story of the average nonprofit sounds similar to that of the average start-up. Perpetually understaffed, overworked, and under-resourced. Donors expect to see that their contributions are generating change. Failure to demonstrate this leads to a failure to secure funds. This story has no room for patience, reflection, the slow build of positive change.
While I speak explicitly of nonprofits, this also applies to more institutional development actors like the UN.
“A lot of the way that aid is structured, a lot of the implementing organizations like the UN are accountable to the donors and not accountable to the people they are trying to serve,” Raj tells me as he considers an improved development approach. He continues by asking a pertinent question, “How do we change those systemic structures?”
A path forward: reflection at scale
Evident in the stories I hear are patient and reflective exercises. I hear expats in the development space questioning whether or not they should have been or should continue to be there. I hear them expressing gratitude for their own personal growth, and yet guilt for perhaps benefiting more than the populations they set out to support.
Removing the expat from the development sector altogether would be an overly simplistic conclusion. However, the expat’s ability to improve outcomes in a struggling community is stunted when the difficult inner dialogue we experience is not acknowledged at the level of our organizations. This sheds light on a potential path towards a development sector that is positive for everyone involved. It is one whose institutions and organizations chose to engage in the same type of reflection that their employees are engaging in.