The practical politics of civil service reform in Nepal

Report

Abstract:: Nepal’s civil service serves political parties more than the people – and it is a drag on growth and development. The new government has a once-in-a-generation chance to depoliticise the civil service and catalyse progressive change. Missing it risks keeping Nepal stuck in a low-growth, low-development, high-migration loop. Many civil servants are skilled, honest and motivated, but the system punishes those traits. For change to happen, the political dimensions of the civil service need to be explicitly addressed.

Files:: OpenPEA_Team_2026_The_practical_politics.pdf

(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 924.6KB, Terms of use)

Language:: English
Keywords:: political economy analysis

bureaucratic politicisation

Nepal

Civil service reform

public sector governance
Pubs id:: 2451639
Local pid:: pubs:2451639
Deposit date:: 2026-08-17
ARK identifier:: ark:/29072/ora_d927d50afcbb440080cf33b0c6d3b799

Rights statement:: Published in 2026 by the Open Political Economy Analysis Programme, University of Oxford under a CC Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International licence.

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