About the Report
Do Nepal’s budgets match its commitments to disability rights? A new KOSHISH report examines federal spending through a CRPD lens, with technical support from CIP. Explore the key findings and hear from lead researcher Sanjaya Raj Neupane about the research behind them.
How can we know whether a country’s commitments to disability rights are actually reflected in how public resources are used?
From Promise to Practice: Analyzing CRPD Compliance of Nepal’s Federal Budgets, developed by KOSHISH, applies CRPD-compliant budget analysis to Nepal’s federal budgets to examine the gap between policy commitments and financial decisions.
The research was led by Sanjaya Raj Neupane, with Daniel Mont and Meenakshi Balasubramanian from the Center for Inclusive Policy (CIP) serving on the Research Steering Team and providing technical mentoring and guidance throughout the research process.
This work builds on CIP’s broader approach to CRPD-compliant budget analysis, which looks beyond disability-specific allocations to examine whether public resources are actually advancing the rights, participation, accessibility, and inclusion required by the CRPD. CIP developed this methodology as a practical tool to strengthen the ability of organizations of persons with disabilities (OPDs) to use public finance data for advocacy.
Main Findings
The report reveals a significant disconnect between Nepal’s disability policy commitments and the resources allocated to implement them. Disability-specific spending remains below 0.35% of the national budget and is heavily concentrated in social protection transfers, with limited investment in broader inclusion.
The analysis identifies three systemic gaps:
- Participation gap: limited evidence of systematic and meaningful OPD involvement in budget planning and monitoring.
- Accountability gap: limited monitoring and evaluation, disability-disaggregated data, and information on actual expenditure.
- Policy-budget misalignment: in several areas, financial allocations do not match the inclusion goals established in policy.
Together, these findings show why disability budget analysis cannot stop at asking how much is being spent. It also needs to ask what is being funded, whether spending advances rights, who participates in those decisions, and whether results can be tracked.
Behind the Research: Three Questions With Sanjaya Raj Neupane
1. Could you walk us through the key findings?
Neupane: “The main finding is that over 90% of disability-specific spending goes to social protection schemes. Less than 10% is allocated to empowerment, accessibility and inclusion programs. Nepal has strong commitments and policies on disability, but when we talk about the budget, the allocation remains weak.
We found a systemic disconnection between the government commitments and what is being funded. We identified three gaps. The first is the participation gap: OPDs are not meaningfully consulted in budget preparation, planning and monitoring. This raises concerns regarding compliance with CRPD Article 4.3 and 33.3.
Second is the accountability gap. We found limited disability-disaggregated data, minimal monitoring and evaluation, and limited transparency regarding actual expenditure. There are budget allocations, but we could not find sufficient publicly available expenditure information to assess how much was actually spent.”
2. How can OPDs use this analysis in their advocacy?
Neupane: “Such analysis requires technical knowledge, technical input, appropriate data analysis techniques. Not every organization will have the capacity to conduct such an in-depth analysis, but it is important that one or two organizations take on this role. If such analysis is conducted each year, it can help identify where the actual gaps are occurring and provide evidence that organizations can use to advocate for improvements.
For example, our analysis identified concerns around the implementation of CRPD Articles 4(3) and 33(3), particularly regarding participation and accountability. If persons with disabilities and their organizations have access to such evidence, they can use it to advocate for their rights and engage with the relevant ministries.”
3. What practical advice would you give to others who want to carry out similar work? What challenges did you face along the way?
Neupane: “I think that in the global context, the disability sector is a highly marginalized sector, whether it is a developed country or underdeveloped country. Our experience shows that most governments do not like to provide data to the disability sector for analysis.
They do not like to acknowledge that they are not doing things properly. This is what we faced during the data collection process. And if OPDs in different countries use such a resource, as the CRPD is mandatory for signatory countries, it could help them advocate and also guide those countries in the direction of a CRPD compliant budget analysis or development process.”
