Padam Gurung, who grew up in a village in Sindhupalchowk, had to struggle every day to reach school when he was 13. Once, a heavy flood washed away the wooden bridge during the rainy season, and he and his friends were deprived of going to school for 7 months.

Then the villagers made a tuin by stretching a wire and hanging a wooden box on it. Gurung had to cross the river while hanging on the same tuin. According to him, he had to pay a fee every time he used the tuin. The journey was very risky. Parents were tormented every day by worrying whether their children would return home safely. About a year later, a suspension bridge was built at the same place. The risky tuin journey ended and travel became easier.

After 4 decades, his life has taken a different turn. After struggling to cross the river to go to school as a child, he now contributes to bridge construction in various countries. That is, he is active in providing safe travel facilities to other communities. Gurung has contributed to the construction of hundreds of suspension bridges across Nepal since joining the Swiss development agency Helvetas’ suspension bridge program in 1996. He has since traveled to Burundi, Cameroon, and Ethiopia, training engineers, providing technical advice to governments, and helping remote communities solve problems he faced as a child. 

Before Nepal adopted the suspension bridge model, rural settlements in Ethiopia were facing the same difficulties that Nepal faced decades ago. Gurung’s journey is a representative story of a remarkable shift in Nepal’s international development efforts. Once upon a time, foreign engineers came to Nepal to build bridges. Now, Nepali engineers are traveling to countries like Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Guatemala to teach communities facing similar challenges.

With the aim of institutionalizing this experience gained by Nepal, Helvetas (South-South Cooperation Unit) established in 2008, which is now known as Track-4-Change. Its aim is not only to build bridges, but also to enable the countries concerned to build bridges. 

This project aims to enable various countries to operate suspension bridge programs by transferring the technical knowledge, engineering standards and training systems developed by Nepal through decades of practice.

Through Track-4-Change, Nepali engineers have been assisting the governments of 11 countries, including Bhutan, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Indonesia, Guatemala and Afghanistan, to develop suspension bridge programs based on Nepali technology, Nepali standards and Nepali experience.

‘Our aim is not just to build bridges and return,’ said Ansu Tumbahangphe, director of Track-for-Change. ‘We want to empower the human resources and institutions of the countries concerned.’

But Nepal did not achieve the status of sharing its expertise with the world overnight. The foundation for this began to be laid almost six decades ago. In the 1960s, the Swiss Agency for Technical Assistance (SATA), in collaboration with Nepal through Helvetas, began an effort to find a solution to connect rural areas. 

At that time, the rivers flowing in the hilly and mountainous terrain made it difficult for villagers to reach schools, health facilities and markets. The risk of crossing rivers was even greater during the rainy season. When the river flow increased, some settlements would be cut off from the outside world for days or weeks. Swiss and Nepali engineers worked together to find a solution. They studied chain bridges that had been built for generations in Baglung and other districts using local materials and traditional skills. Based on that, they developed modern suspension bridge technology. “Swiss and Nepali engineers refined and made the traditional technology used by the local community more sophisticated and safer,” says Tumbahangfe.

Compared to traditional bridges, suspension bridges are simpler and more affordable to build. They do not require heavy equipment. Construction materials can be carried by hand to remote areas. A large part of the construction work is completed with the participation of the local community. “Its engineering quality is strong, but the design is relatively simple,” says Tumbahangfe. “We estimate that the cost of building such a bridge is at least 10 times cheaper than bridges with traditional designs.” Nepali engineers also changed the practice of creating new designs for each bridge separately. Instead, they developed a modular design based on standards that can be adapted to the needs of different locations. This significantly reduced both the time taken to prepare the design and the construction cost.

Over time, the program has expanded beyond bridge construction. Sixteen technical manuals covering surveying, design, construction, maintenance, quality control, and more have been prepared. Suspension bridge engineering has also been included in the curricula of Nepal’s universities and technical education institutions. “We are not just exporting bridges,” says Tumbahangfe, “we are exporting an entire system.”

By the time Helvetas stopped its direct support in 2023, more than 11,000 suspension bridges had been built across Nepal. More than one million people use these bridges daily. Studies have shown that school attendance has increased by 16 percent and women’s access to healthcare during pregnancy has increased by 31 percent. But Gurung said that the impact of bridges cannot be measured by statistics. He recalls a village in Burundi where locals had to pay boatmen to cross a river. When the suspension bridge became operational, people from all over the village gathered to celebrate.

‘They were singing. I asked the interpreter what they were singing,’ Gurung recalls. ‘They were singing. Take away the boat, the bridge has set us free. I felt so proud to hear that.’ The scene reminded Gurung of his childhood in Sindhupalchowk, where parents had to worry every day whether their children would make it home safely after crossing the river. 

Through Track-for-Change, Nepali suspension bridge experts and engineers like Gurung stay in the respective country for four to five months at a time, working directly with local governments, consultants, construction companies and technicians. The training program combines classroom study, on-site observation and practical on-the-job guidance. Some training sessions last longer than a month.

This practical, capacity-building approach, according to Ethiopian officials, has made Nepal’s assistance different and more effective than traditional development projects. This practical, capacity-building approach has made Nepal’s assistance different and more effective than traditional development projects, according to Ethiopian officials. Before Nepal adopted the suspension bridge model, rural Ethiopian settlements were facing the same challenges Nepal faced decades ago. When rivers swelled during the rainy season, villages had difficulty accessing schools, health centers, and markets. Without safe bridges, locals had to cross the river at their own risk or walk for hours to reach a safe crossing. This problem ultimately brought Ethiopian officials to Nepal in search of a solution. “At that time, Ethiopia did not have the technical knowledge and skills to design and build suspension bridges,” said Tsehay Tsegaye, national coordinator for Helvetas Ethiopia. 

Instead of adopting expensive foreign technology, Ethiopia has chosen to learn from Nepal’s experience, which has emerged from a similar difficult geographical and economic situation. “The Nepal model was simple, standardized and cost-effective,” says Tsegaye. “The design could be modified to suit local needs, and the construction process was also easy.” Ethiopia’s mountainous geography is divided into rivers and deep valleys. To a large extent, it is similar to Nepal’s. “Given Ethiopia’s limited financial resources, the suspension bridge program became the most suitable option to solve the problems of rural areas,” says Tsegaye. Today, 272 suspension bridges have been built across Ethiopia with Nepali assistance. But the biggest achievement of this program is not just the number of bridges. It is also capacity building. Ethiopian engineers now do not have to depend on Nepali experts for every project.

“This program has enabled Ethiopian engineers to independently carry out the work of building bridges, from site selection to design and construction,” says Tsegaye. 

Today, Ethiopian engineers are able to design and build steel truss and suspension bridges spanning up to 120 meters without external assistance. “This self-reliance is the greatest achievement of this program,” she says. Now the program has entered a new phase. With financial support from the World Bank, Ethiopia plans to build 600 more suspension bridges using this system within the next three years. “This is success for us,” says Tumbahangfe, “It took Nepal about 40 years to institutionalize this system. Ethiopia is completing the same work in 20 years.”

The fact that local engineers are starting to operate and manage most of the projects themselves is a sign of success for Nepal. At one time, there were four Nepalese suspension bridge experts working in Ethiopia, but now that number has been reduced to two. “That’s what we want,” says Tumbahangfe, “and our goal is to create a situation where we won’t need any help in the near future.” But scaling up Nepal’s suspension bridge model to other countries hasn’t always been easy. The model has had to be modified to suit local geography, soil type, and construction methods.

In Indonesia, engineers had to redesign the bridge’s foundation when they found that the soil there was very different from Nepal’s. Similarly, the local labor-based construction model that had been successful in Nepal was not as effective in Ethiopia. Construction work was then done through contractors. “The model has to be adapted to the local conditions and needs of each country,” says Tumbahangfe.

Earlier this year, a team of Tanzanian government officials visited Nepal to study the suspension bridge program closely. They traveled from Kathmandu to Pokhara and observed suspension bridges at various locations.

Earlier this year, a team of Tanzanian government officials came to Nepal to study the suspension bridge program closely. Many of them saw for the first time a national-level suspension bridge network built using a single standard system at low cost. At the end of the visit, some of the participating officials expressed their commitment to take the initiative to advance the suspension bridge construction program in Tanzania through their ministries.

Many still see Nepal only as a country that receives development aid, not as a country that can transfer its experience and technical knowledge to others. But in Ethiopia, this perception is slowly changing. ‘नेपाललाई प्रायः सहायता प्राप्त गर्ने देशका रूपमा हेरिन्छ,’ हेल्भेटास इथियोपियाकी राष्ट्रिय संयोजक त्सेहाय त्सेगाये भन्छिन्, ‘तर झोलुंगे पुल कार्यक्रमको सन्दर्भमा नेपाल सहायता लिने होइन, विशेषज्ञता उपलब्ध गराउने देशका रूपमा स्थापित भयो ।’

त्सेगायेका अनुसार अहिले इथियोपियाका सरकारी अधिकारी र इन्जिनियरहरूले नेपाललाई समान हैसियतको साझेदार तथा व्यावहारिक समाधान प्रदान गर्न सक्ने मुलुकका रूपमा हेर्न थालेका छन् । यसले दुई देशबीचको आपसी सम्मान र सहकार्यलाई थप बलियो बनाएको छ । ठूलो लागतका आयोजनाले सजिलै समाचार र दातृ निकायको ध्यान तान्छन् । झोलुंगे पुल भने लागतमा साना हुन्छन् । करिब ६० मिटर लामो एउटा झोलुंगे पुल निर्माण गर्न ८० हजारदेखि एक लाख अमेरिकी डलरसम्म खर्च लाग्छ । जुन ठूला पूर्वाधार आयोजनाको तुलनामा निकै कम हो ।

यद्यपि, यसको प्रभाव भने अत्यन्त ठूलो हुन सक्छ । ट्र्याक–फोर–चेन्जका अनुसार अहिले पनि विश्वभर करिब एक अर्ब मानिस नदी, खोंच र दुर्गम भूगोलका कारण सडक तथा आधारभूत सेवाको पहुँचबाट टाढा छन् । यस्ता धेरै समुदायका लागि एउटा साधारण झोलुंगे पुलले नै जीवन परिवर्तन गरिदिन सक्छ । यही सोचका साथ कार्यक्रमले अहिले बंगलादेशमा बिस्तारको सम्भावना अध्ययन गरिरहेको छ ।

साथै भियतनाम र लाओसमा नयाँ अवसर खोजिरहेको छ । त्यस्तै तान्जानिया, इथियोपिया र अफगानिस्तानमा काम जारी छ । गुरुङलाई आफ्नो बाल्यकालीन अनुभवले नै यसको महत्त्व बुझाएको छ । त्यसबेला नदीको एक किनारमा उभिएर उनले अर्को किनारमा अवसरहरू छुटिरहेको अनुभव गर्थे । आज उनी त्यही अवरोध अरू कसैले भोग्न नपरोस् भनेर संसारका विभिन्न समुदायलाई सुरक्षित पुलमार्फत जोड्ने काममा लागेका छन् ।