HDI and development delusion

There is little reason to be confident that the remittance economy will endure in the long term.

The hopes of Nepalis for rapid economic development, inspired by the Republican constitution (2006), have turned into despair. A widespread sense of despondency, often expressed as “nothing happens in Nepal,” pervades the country. Nepal’s overall official unemployment rate rose from approximately 5 percent in the mid-1990s to about 11 percent—one of the highest in South Asia—in 2024. Unemployment among the working-age population is the highest and worsening; it increased from approximately 7 percent in 1995 to about 23 percent in 2023. Hundreds of young men and women leave the country every day for employment. The phrase “Our villages are becoming empty” is a common outcry. Large areas of farmland lie fallow because there are no young people to work in the fields.