All Nepalese government officials cancelled trips abroad after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit the country on April 25. But minister of finance, Ram Sharan Mahat, organised a last-minute visit to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) annual meeting in Baku in early May, to present Nepal’s humanitarian crisis and seek financial aid from the international community.
The only other comparable calamity in the country dates back to the 8.0-magnitude earthquake it suffered in 1932. Now, 83 years later, Nepal is facing an enormous humanitarian crisis, just as it was making key economic progress, dealing with a tumultuous democratisation process that has so far failed to produce a new constitution after the monarchy was abolished in 2007 and Nepal became a republic in 2008.
