NEPAL / RURAL ROADS

Nepal is connecting remote villages to the rest of the globe with a network of all-weather roads financed with the help of the World Bank with the aim of providing greater access to schools and markets. WORLD BANK

• Categories: News & Features / News Stories / Unifeed
• Video Length: 00:02:01
• Production Date: 27 May 2009
• Asset Language: Original
• Corporate Name: WORLD BANK
• Subject Topical: ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT; FINANCING; TRANSPORT; COMMUNICATIONS
• Geographic Subject: NEPAL
• MAMS Id: U090527a

Description

STORY: NEPAL / RURAL ROADS
TRT: 2.01
SOURCE: WORLD BANK
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: NEPALI / NATS

DATELINE: SEPTEMBER 2008, POKHORA, NEPAL

Shotlist

SEPTEMBER 2008, POKHORA, NEPAL

1. Various shots, Yam weeding his vegetable patch
3. Wide shot, Tarmac road
4. Med shot, customers at market place
5. SOUNDBITE (Nepali) Yam Bahadur Gurung, farmer:
“I want to form a group among the villagers to buy a vehicle to transport our products to the market.”
6. Pan right, from hill to road
7. Med shot, two women carrying milk churns on their back crossing a stream
8. Close up, gravel road
9. Pan left, from landscape to road
10. Wide shot, children walking on road
11. Med shot, child drinking water from stream
12. Wide shot, road
13. Wide shot, young girl walking
14. Med shot, young girl walking and carrying produce on her back
15. Med shot, market place
16. Med shot, three women counting money
17. Close up, woman’s hands counting money
18. Tilt down, bus
19. SOUNDBITE (Nepali) Narayan Adhikari, ‘Road Users’ committee:
“Before, people used to buy all vegetables from the market in Pokhora. Now almost every household has tomato farming, other vegetable farming, poultry farming and cattle farming.”
20. Wide shot, car parked on the side of a road
21. Wide shot, farmer walking on the road and carrying a plank of wood
22. SOUNDBITE (Nepali) Narayan Adhikari, ‘Road Users’ committee:
“The young people who used to go to the Middle East are earning ten to twelve thousand rupees from vegetable farming due to easy access to market.”
23. Med shot, school girls walking to school
24. Wide shot, street scene in downtown Pokhara
25. Wide shot, tarmac road with car driving by

Storyline

Yam Bahadur Gurung is a farmer in Nepal’s Sardikhola village. He supports two children, and, until recently, he was a subsistence farmer growing tomatoes, cabbage and cauliflower. Now, thanks to a new road financed in part by the World Bank, he sells his crops at market, earning a thousand rupees a month.

SOUNDBITE (Nepali) Yam Bahadur Gurung, farmer:
“I want to form a group among the villagers to buy a vehicle to transport our products to the market.”

New all-weather roads connect hilly, remote villages like Sardikhola to the rest of Nepal. Over a third of Nepal’s 24 million people live at least a two-hour walk from the nearest all-season road. And more than half of the country’s roads are not useable during the rainy season.

Isolation comes at a cost. Studies show that children in Nepal’s remote areas are more likely to be malnourished, die young, and not attend school. But in villages connected to roads, the enrollment of girls in school and collage has increased. And the price of staples like rice, sugar, salt, oil and kerosene has dropped sharply because of cheaper, faster, transportation.

SOUNDBITE (Nepali) Narayan Adhikari, ‘Road Users’ committee:
“Before, people used to buy all vegetables from the market in Pokhora. Now almost every household has tomato farming, other vegetable farming, poultry farming and cattle farming”.

People in Nepal now use all-season roads to get access to bigger towns and cities.

SOUNDBITE (Nepali) Narayan Adhikari, ‘Road Users’ committee:
“The young people who used to go to the Middle East are earning ten to twelve thousand rupees from vegetable farming due to easy access to market.”

Travel takes less time. Getting to school takes 60 percent less time than before, to health services, 45 percent less time, and to shops, 70 percent less time. And there is enormous support for the road improvements.