Nepal Now: A Cursory Look on Major Areas of Achievements and Failures

Nepal Now: A Cursory Look on Major Areas of Achievements and Failures

Govinda Neupane

Areas of Achievements

Nepal has done fairly well in areas of mass communication. We have highest number of FM radio stations in South Asia, many TV channels, large percentage of people have telephone access, particularly the spread of mobile phones. Internet has been gaining popularity each day.

Banking is another sector where Nepal has built a network of financial institutions and services capable of meeting needs of a large percentage of people. The informal network of remit centers and its service of remittance handling have created a cobweb of future banking activities, particularly that of micro-transactions. The major banks including in private sector are run professionally and profitably.

The education infrastructure built by the private sector has been catering fairly quality education, though it is too expensive for ordinary people. However, the intakes of children in these institutions have made space available for children of low income families in the government-run education institutions. Rather than launching movement for improvement of education quality in government schools and for affordable fee structure in private schools, our political parties and their sister organizations are busy over-politicizing teachers and students in government schools and extracting donations from and threatening the private schools to close down.

Similarly, mushrooming of health service delivery institutions including medical colleges, public health teaching institutions, nursing colleges, private hospitals, nursing homes, polyclinics and clinics have created fairly well infrastructure for health services. The government institutions are also a bit functioning in this sector compared to education sector, may be due to public pressures. In any case, the health sector has been functioning well baring remote areas, though there is not much vibrancy.

The participation of Nepali migrant workers in the labor market of different countries, particularly the Gulf countries, Malaysia and South Korea has opened a major source of foreign earning in the form of remittance. The remittance income has been fueling the financial viability of different activities in Nepal mostly in education, health and real estate. The World Bank has estimated that Nepal receives more than 23% of its GDP from remittance. There are thousands of sad stories of the hardship the workers face each day. Hence, the ethical dimension and sustainability of such source of income is always subject of fierce debate. Just limiting to financial part, it has been insulating Nepal from being a failed state. The fighting for survival in harsh physical and social condition but still hard working Nepali migrant workers deserve salute from us in Nepal.

Transport is another area where we have done fairly well. Roads are our gems that we have created. Nearly all District Headquarters are connected by the road network. Though, the quality of roads is quite sub-standard in a large majority of roadways, at least, there has been the first break through. The airports, private sector airlines, bus and truck services all are making lives of people connected and are creating thousands of market places where millions of people are employed in informal sectors or are self-employed.

Nepal could compete with many countries who are welcoming large number of tourists. Our hospitality services industry, which includes hotels, restaurants, travel and tour agencies, international connectivity and so on are functioning well.

Areas Where We Lag Behind

The agricultural sector is still the major employment generator. However, it has neither been made commercially viable employment and productivity option nor has it been modernized. Moreover, the labor flight from agriculture to foreign destinations and urban centers has made this important sector an orphan. We are still continuing the practices of subsistence agriculture. We should learn to switch to cash crops and commercial farming. Our hills and mountains could function as diamond mines in the form of horticulture and floriculture farms and also as major source of timber and other forest produces. But, we are happy growing the economically not-so-viable paddy and corn. The southern plains could really be our bread basket provided we adopted new agriculture technologies. In this sector, we are far behind.

Similarly, we have not been able to harness water resources available in abundance. The country of vast hydro-power potentials has been suffering from power cuts of several hours everyday. We are hungry to get electricity to consume whereas we should be selling electricity to China through northern grid and to India through southern grid. Here, we have failed miserably.

Manufacturing is an area where we have done extremely poorly. Inadequate infrastructure, power outage and labor unrest have limited its potentials. Competing with the giant neighbors, China and India is also a tall order. Here, we should be selective. Going for anything and many things may lead us to nowhere. Success here depends upon our ability in being correctly selective.

Priorities and Focus Areas

Now, it has become clear that our future depends on how we could educate our people. When we talk about education it refers to overall development of human capacities of our people. Hence, quality education should be our number ONE priority.

To provide enabling environment so that people get better education and also contribute in areas of production and services, there must be a well functioning and quality health delivery infrastructure and allied support services.

Wealth creation is another key area. This wealth creation should include common properties such as physical and social infrastructures and means and methods for economic prosperity. By now, it has become clear that commercial farming including horticulture, floriculture, herbs cultivation, animal farms and other cash generating produces should get attention.

Multipurpose utilization of water resources including generating electricity and locally consuming for households, industries and transport systems and also exporting it, providing irrigation facilities, bottling water and exporting etc is what we should go for. This could be the backbone of our economy.

Another focus should be on tourism including hospitality business. Tourism has become already a milking cow for us. Lumbini, Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest) and many other majestic mountain peaks, cultural and architectural wonders of the glorious valley of Kathmandu and the natural panorama and scenic beauties spread all over Nepal are the treasures, which only we have in the entire world. These treasures make us special.

Many other small things we can do with difference such as handicrafts, IT services, transit trade between India and China, etc.

We could and should make better and brighter future. And, for this aim, we should clear the political mess that we are in today. Let's dare to clear the mess and let's march forward to build a prosperous Nepal, where well educated, healthy and enterprising Nepali people may live happily.

June 07, 2013