Economy

Janakpur Handicraft Centre supports economically backward women in Nepal by giving them training, employment and other opportunities to get empowered.

The goal of the buddy system is not the artificial redistribution of wealth from the wealthier to the poorer countries. The goal is to facilitate interaction and exchange between the buddy countries on different levels, from administration to citizen initiatives.

“That’s not to say that microfinance won’t help the very poor, rather that there needs to be a recognition that microfinance isn’t the only thing that can work", argues Oxford Microfinance Initiative’s President Vicente Solera Deuchar.

If the government takes serious actions to promote local and community entrepreneurship, this will not only diversify and uplift Nepal’s overall economy, but also provide enormous employment opportunities to Nepal’s jobless youths who have very few options for employment at the moment–apart from lying up in manpower agencies and heading for ill-paid foreign employment in the Gulf countries.

By Lykke Andersen A lousy little loan, which seemed like a good idea at the time, doomed Micky to a life in extreme poverty and heavy indebtedness, while Savvy, who couldn’t get a loan, did very well. So, if you thought micro credit will help solve the problem of poverty, you might want to do a bit of math to understand the astonishing power of compound interest.

By Rajendra Senchurey Nepal’s counterparts in Asia have progressed dramatically in these decades. But since the advent of multiparty democracy, Nepal has not achieved anything significant. Quite surprisingly, in terms of economic progress, Nepal exhibits the characters of a Sub-Saharan economy. Then what is the cause of Nepal’s stagnation?

According to the OECD’s latest Global Outlook on Financing for Sustainable Development, developing countries are facing a shortfall of USD 1.7 trillion in the financing they would need this year to keep them on track for the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as governments and investors grapple with the health, economic and social impacts of the COVID-19 crisis.

Thirty-two of the world’s largest companies stand to see their profits jump by $109 billion more in 2020 as the Covid-19 pandemic lays bare an economic model that delivers profits for the wealthiest on the back of the poorest, according to a new Oxfam report released this week.

Despite a number of attempts from different sectors, poverty in Nepal is still a rampant phenomenon and the country remains one of the poorest countries in the world.

A series of impact studies showed that microfinance had mixed results. Charging affordable interest rates and offering training as well as loans simply wasn’t profitable – and profitable microfinance did not have the full effect of economic gains that was intended. A course correction was needed.