A decent start

Future governments must nurture this sapling of global dialogue the Oli government has planted.

The first edition of Nepal’s flagship forum for global dialogue, the Sagarmatha Sambaad (May 16-18), was a mixed bag. But we would like to believe there were more positives than negatives for Nepal, its host. As many commentators have pointed out, the biggest drawback of the inaugural event was the lack of high-level political participation from abroad: None of the heads of state or government could be brought to Kathmandu. Perhaps this represented Nepal’s poor diplomatic outreach. In the absence of these political decision-makers from abroad, the argument goes, the stature of the Sambaad has shrunk. Yet there is also another way of looking at this. Yes, a few top international leaders could have attended to give the event a higher international profile. Yet this is just the first iteration of the Sambaad and the lessons from it will prove invaluable in the organisation of future editions (hopefully featuring more high-profile attendees). Nor is it entirely fair to compare the Sambaad with similar events like the Raisina Dialogue (India), the Shangri-la Dialogue (Singapore) or the Munich Security Conference (Germany). Compared to Nepal, the host countries of these conferences have significantly more diplomatic and economic clout that they can leverage to invite high-level delegates from around the world.