Nepal is one of the world's poorest nations, with a per capita GDP of $210. In purchasing power parity, this would be the equivalent of $1327 per person for Nepalis, against $35,401 for Americans and $2358 for Indians. Most Nepalis live in rural villages without electricity, telephones, plumbing, education or health care. Life expectancy in some areas is 36 years; overall it is 59, against 63 for India and 77 for the US. Babies often die from polio, tetanus and other diseases, and 91% are born without medical assistance. Nepali women face a lifetime risk of 1 in 21 of death while giving birth, while Indian women have a 1 in 55 risk and Americans 1 in 470.
People often have to walk miles up and down mountains to fetch water and live several days' walk from the nearest road. Half are illiterate. A house is an unheated hut with no glass or screens upon the windows, and the toilet is the field. Most Nepalis are subsistence farmers who till their tiny fields by hand or with oxen, living medieval lives in the 21st century.

Foreign aid pours in, mostly from Europe and Japan, but less than 5% ever reaches the people. Government officials steal the rest. Roads, irrigation projects, schools, health clinics and other facilities never find their way from the grandiose plans, used by our government to bamboozle donors, to the backward villages. Our poverty is their sales pitch. Donated medical equipment is sold on the black market, so the few hospitals we have lack even the most basic equipment. The US has over 100 times more doctors per capita than Nepal, and most of the ones we have are greedy and incompetent, and live in the cities where they treat only those few who can pay. Bribery is the lubricant without which nothing in government happens.