Nepal’s floods expose how colonial climate governance and donor dependency trap Global South in adaptation debt
Original framing: “Nepal’s disaster has laid bare the world’s adaptation accountability gap” — Climate Home News
Dalit women in Nepal’s Terai region, who comprise 40% of flood-displaced populations, report that climate adaptation programs rarely address their specific needs, such as access to flood-resistant seed varieties or safe childbirth facilities during monsoons. A 2024 study by *ActionAid Nepal* found that 78% of marginalized communities perceive climate adaptation initiatives as ‘extractive,’ citing cases where donor-funded ‘early warning systems’ were installed without local training or maintenance plans. The erasure of these voices perpetuates a cycle where adaptation becomes another tool for displacement, with marginalized groups bearing the brunt of both climate impacts and ‘solutions’ designed without their input.
Nepal’s disaster is not a failure of local action but a consequence of a climate governance architecture designed to perpetuate dependency, where Western-led institutions extract knowledge, dictate ‘solutions,’ and then blame the Global South for ‘slow uptake.
’ The erasure of Indigenous hydrological systems like *Patale Chango*, the historical suppression of community funds under colonial and neoliberal regimes, and the systematic exclusion of Dalit and Madhesi voices from adaptation policy reveal a pattern of structural violence—one that frames ‘adaptation’ as a technical problem rather than a justice issue. The trickster dimension exposes the absurdity of an ‘accountability gap’ narrative that obscures the real heist: the siphoning of climate finance into Northern consultancies while local solutions are starved. To break this cycle, Nepal must reclaim sovereignty over its climate knowledge and finance, integrating Indigenous systems into legal frameworks while auditing donor practices with marginalized communities. The path forward lies not in more ‘global partnerships’ but in dismantling the colonial continuum that has trapped the Global South in adaptation debt.