Submit your Article

Nepal’s logistic sector needs to work towards transforming supply chains through digital platforms and technologies. Despite the rapid advancement of the global supply chain, we continue to rely on traditional methods. The World Bank has been suggesting the government on the agenda of digitalization, but a lack of coordination among government stakeholders has been obstructing the move. The integrated border management system (IBMS) from the World Bank will help streamline the border issues as well as help proper planning from the transit point until the logistic centers and electrical cargo tracking (ETCS) system of ADB with some amendments would help in the transit and domestic flow of goods. The trade facilitation and cross-border paperless trade agendas have been pending for a very long time with little to no activities. Further, involving freight forwarders in the Nepal National Single Window (NNAW) is pending .

The bilateral and regional agreements are all being executed in a very traditional manner, without incorporating modern automation and digitalization mechanisms to ease business and increase traceability, predictability, and accountability to facilitate and meet global supply chain demands.

The customers demand and expect faster, more transparent, and personalized service. To meet their expectations, we need to utilize digital platforms to enhance the customer experience through better tracking, faster delivery, and improved communication to ensure seamless integration of data across different systems and platforms associated with government and private sector service providers. This demands developing data formats and communication between actors in trade facilitation. Another significant challenge is adopting new technologies, scaling them throughout the supply chain through pilot projects in controlled environments before scaling, and making sure these components are simple to integrate and adapt.Protecting sensitive supply chain data from cyber threats is another important and burning issue. Implementing cybersecurity measures, such as encryption, multi-factor authentication, and regular audits, can overcome this by ensuring the accuracy, consistency, and timeliness of data across the supply chain. Data governance policies, as well as the use of data validation tools to maintain high data quality and implement digital signatures, could be useful methods.

The cost factor associated with implementing new digital technologies is high. Still, there is a need to do a cost-benefit analysis and seek cost-effective solutions or phased implementation approaches to manage cost factors. Implementing automation through digitalization has proven successful in many countries, as it helps monitor the flow of goods, documents, money, data, and information among all those associated with the supply chain.

It is essential to change the mindset and adapt to change management by motivating the workforce through proper training, enhancing their digital knowledge, and addressing cultural and operational changes within organizations such as the Departments of Customs and Commerce, as well as both private and government logistic service providers.

Therefore, developing comprehensive training programs and change management strategies to help employees adapt to new technologies is a must, as is setting fixed regulations and standards across different actors and government support agencies to ensure compliance through regular audits. Another challenge is balancing digital transformation with sustainable practices to lessen environmental impacts through monitoring and evaluation. Other precautions include integrating new digital technologies with existing systems using middleware solutions and gradual transition strategies to avoid disrupting operations.

The transition to digitalization in the supply chain requires many issues to be addressed. Some issues require a strategic approach, leveraging the latest digital tools and technologies while ensuring alignment with overall business objectives and maintaining flexibility to adapt to future changes. Implementing IoT devices, real-time tracking, and advanced analytics to monitor and optimize supply chain performance will enable real-time visibility for analytics purposes while also easing the process of doing domestic and international trade.

Like the rest of the world, Nepal faces numerous crises such as rising temperatures, wildfires, lack of drinking water malnutrition and a range of flood and drought occurrences. Records kept at the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority show that 1,434 incidents of fire and forest fire were recorded in April-May, a period characterized by the highest number of fire incidents, causing 27 deaths and leaving 86 people injured. 

Additionally, cancer patients have been increasing by the day due to factors like improper use of chemicals and fertilizers. 

On one hand, farmers cannot transplant paddy due to lack of rainfall, while on the other, heavy rains destroy rice crops ready for harvest. Apart from rising temperatures, other factors like high input costs, wild animals on rampage, climate change and unfair share in agricultural products exert pressure on farmers to abandon farming. In order to deal with these contemporary crises, we need to increase our comparative advantage in production systems with the main focus on agroecology.

Agroecology

Agroecology is agriculture integrated with ecology. A production system in harmony with nature, it transcends the traditional practices of tillage, planting, cultivation, harvesting and marketing. Agroecology, according to Stephen R Gliessman, is not just limited to farming practices but deals with the whole chain of interactions among crops, soil organisms and insect pests, their natural enemies as well as environmental conditions and management decisions.

In conventional agricultural systems, there exists a clear distinction between agriculture and nature. In such systems, inorganic fertilizers and pesticides added into soil for increased productivity put microorganisms like bacteria and earthworms at risk, decreasing soil’s ability to rejuvenate. Soil scientist Claude Bourguignon however argues that soil, despite being life’s basis, is simply a substratum. Increased reliance on fossil fuels for agricultural operations and other efforts toward commercialization and modernization of the farm sector disrupts the natural rhythm of production. Furthermore, market forces through liberalization or trade also affect food agriculture dynamics.

Put together, agriculture, forestry and other land use amount to 22 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions with transportation adding a further 15 percent, according to some studies. It is an established fact that the production-centric traditional agricultural systems contribute enormously to greenhouse gas emissions and have low adaptive capacity to climate change.

Nepal is going through its hottest summer on record along with increased forest fires. A contrasting scenario is where severe droughts in winter have resulted in massive crop failure while the highest ever recorded rainfall has led to flood causing a significant loss of matured crops. Water shortage has gotten worse in the Tarai region with depletion of groundwater resources. 

Incidents of landslides and floods have been rising and our study indicates that 80 percent of Nepal’s population is vulnerable to climate-induced hazards. Notably, Climate Risk Indexes (CRI) identifies Nepal as the 10th most affected country worldwide with marginalized communities, women and farmers forming a group highly susceptible to climate change impacts.

Commercialization

Subsistence agriculture constitutes a significant feature of our production system, with the exchange of surplus being a major characteristic. The key features of subsistence agriculture include mixed farming, proper integration of livestock, agriculture and forests as well as growing for consumption. Our traditional agricultural practices were diverse, exchange-based and synergetic. However, the introduction of monoculture, chemicals, pesticides and corporate-controlled seeds in the name of commercialization, production and development has made the entire agricultural system more vulnerable to climate change. Increased production costs resulting from this practice has forced small-scale farmers to leave farming altogether, exacerbating food insecurity.

Despite constitutional provisions on sustainable agricultural practices and on the integration of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into the government’s policies and programs, our main policy documents, including annual plans, policies and budgets prioritize chemicals-based farming practices instead of incorporating agroecology into climate adaptation and tourism development or supporting farmers to stay on their farms.

The policies and programs for the fiscal year 2024-25, presented recently in the Parliament, list “increase in power generation and creation of a more conducive environment for investment” as some of the major achievements of the incumbent government. The focus, at least on paper, is also on delivery of fertilizers and seeds on time, and on expanding irrigation services. 

The policy document of the government pledges to increase agricultural investments, attain food self-sufficiency in vegetables and main staple crops, provide insurance coverage for agri-products, apart from promising minimum support price (MSP), farmer cards and emphasizing a productivity-centered modern industrial agriculture, but these pledges are “old wine in a new bottle”.

This document does not seem to bother much about agroecology, which is about promoting organic farming, biodiversity protection, natural farming and indigenous crops. 

It supports organic agriculture and indigenous crop production only for business purposes, which goes against the principle of agroecology. Additionally, there is a provision to provide quality chemical fertilizers for sustainable soil quality management, a practice akin to administering poison to a patient.

Summing up, agroecology can help solve several problems plaguing the farm sector like food insecurity, climate crisis, desertion of farmers due to increased cost of production, increasing import of foodgrains and agricultural goods, decrease in soil fertility due to input-intensive agriculture and increased use of chemical fertilizers. Let this fact dawn on our leaders, policymakers and bureaucrats before it’s too late.

“Ek din Narad satyalok pugigaya lokko garun hit bhani.”

Thus begins Bhanubhakta Acharya’s Ramayan, the Nepali translation of Brahmarshi Balmiki’s epic, the Adhyatma Ramayan.  

The purpose of the pioneer poet of the Nepali language is lucidly clear in the above-mentioned line: Lokko hit (the good of the public, the worlds). Bhanubhakta’s Ramayan begins with Brahmarshi Narad visiting Satyalok (the realm of truth) for doing the good of the Lok (the people, the worlds); the purpose of Bhanubhakta’s labor is also to serve the people by translating the Ramayan from Sanskrit into a poetic Nepali. In the course of time, Bhanubhakta’s Ramayan has become immensely popular in Nepal and India, especially among Nepali-speaking communities.

Bhanubhakta was well-versed in Sanskrit, a language mainly of rich and well-educated people like scholars, priests and teachers of those times, but most of the Nepali society was not even familiar with Sanskrit. So, Bhanubhakta took it upon himself to translate the epic into simple and lyrical Nepali, making it hugely popular in Nepali households, both in Nepal and parts of India.

Ahead of his times and aware of the public pulse, Bhanubhakta has well-established himself in the literary firmament and earned himself a place in the hearts and minds of the Nepali Lok based in Nepal and abroad.

Apart from the Ramayan, his works including Badhushiksha Prashnottari, Bhaktamala and Ram Geeta have also sought to serve the public by reforming society through moral education.

The work titled Badhushiksha Prasnottari, for example, is Bhanubhakta’s attempt to teach good manners to daughters-in-law, to teach them how to behave with their mothers-in-law. 

Bhanubhakta was a devotee of Lord Ram and his lyrical Ramayan made him popular far and wide.

There’s a vast scope for a comparative study of Bhanubhakta’s contributions vis-à-vis other contemporary poets, but the sad fact is that there is no comparative study department in any universities of Nepal for such an undertaking.

Nonetheless, he is comparable to the great poet of Sanskrit, Balmiki, the prominent Awadhi poet Tulasi Das and the celebrated Maithili poet Chanda Jha.

A long time ago, Prof Surdeo Singh Prabhakar earned his PhD for his thesis titled ‘Comparative study of Bhanubhakta and Tulasi Das’ from the University of Allahabad, India. But his dissertation remains unpublished till date, somehow obscuring Bhanubhakta’s contribution.

The then Royal Nepal Academy (Nepal Academy now) has published Prof Dhundhiraj Bhandari’s article titled ‘A comparative study of Bhanubhakta and Tulasi Das’ in its research magazine named ‘Pragya’. This writer’s article on a comparative study of Bhanubhakta and Tulasi Das also got published in the same magazine.

In the World Sanskrit Seminar held in Kathmandu under the aegis of the Embassy of India in Kathmandu two years ago, this writer had made a presentation on a comparative study of the Ram Katha (story of Ram) of Bhanubhakta and Ram Katha of Tulasi Das.

Scholar Ram Chandra Poudel has also done research on the comparative study of Bhanubhakta and Balmiki whereas Prof Jayaraj Acharya has written a book titled ‘Bhanubhakta Acharya: His life and selected poems (2011), highlighting Bhanubhakta’s valuable contribution to Nepali language and literature.

Acharya has touched upon the need for a comparative study on Bhanubhakta and some other poets, especially Tulsidas from India. Notably, though well-versed in Sanskrit, Tulsidas also chose to write his ‘Ramcharit Manas’ in Awadhi, to reach and serve a wider audience.

Bhanubhakta was from the times when a clique consisting of teachers, preachers, scholars and priests from the elite class had a kind of monopoly over knowledge, given their command of Sanskrit in which most of the literature of those times was written.   

Yet he caught the pulse of the commoners of those times and had the foresight to translate the Ramayan into Nepali, which earned him immense fame, thanks to its lyrical and simple language.

Notably, this poet, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, in Ramgha of Tanahun district, drew inspiration for doing something good for the society from a grass-cutter, who, in the course of a conversation, said he was saving his hard-earned money to dig a well for fellow villagers.  

The rest, as they say, is history.

By taking the Ramayan, considered a fountainhead of peace and spiritual bliss for the religious minded people, to Nepali households, Bhanubhakta has helped spread the glory of Ram further and also immortalized the grass-cutter.

Bhanubhakta has become a national icon because of his contributions. He will shine in the firmament of Nepali language and literature forever.

There is almost no day without some alarmistic and potentially catastrophic news about the impact of climate change and biodiversity loss.

The latest was the discovery of a new tipping point for ice sheets in Antarctica, meaning that there is very substantial evidence that future sea level rise can be much higher than what scientists are anticipating so far.

As we know, Nepal is also one of the epicenters of climate vulnerabilities.

The risks of huge and devastating disasters and other calamities related to climate warming are becoming a real possibility with unimaginable consequences.

Just a few days of incessant rains around the country have already caused the loss of 13 lives and we are only at the beginning of the monsoon.

The state, at its all levels, federal, provincial and local, must lead but we know that alone, these public entities entrusted by the people with governing and vital decision-making powers, are unable to do whatever it takes to tackle climate change head on.

I strongly believe that it is paramount to create new and innovative pathways of citizens’ participation to discuss bold measures to avoid the unthinkable. Youths should be leading this effort and we need to create spaces for debating and discussion.

Recently, on the occasion of World Environment Day (June 5), a big gathering was held to discuss recycling and climate action.

Organized by a consortium of private and public entities, including the Confederation of Nepalese Industries (CNI), National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), the Waste Management and Climate Change conference brought together more than 700 people.

Mansingh Aidee, a public health professional, president of Gopka Youth Club and a member of the 2023 cohort of the US Embassy Youth Council, had the opportunity to attend.

I met him as part of involvement with The Good Leadership, a new initiative that tries to enable students and young professionals to excel in some key policy making.

Mansingh is part of The Good Leadership’s Community of Practitioners on Climate Action, a platform that has been turned by him and his team mates into the “Planet Pulse Campaign” whose focus is on promoting and creating momentum on One Health, SDGs and Climate Science.

I asked him to elaborate on the conference and according to Mansingh, the event was a rich experience, full of insights.

He generously shared for this column some of the key quotes from the participants.

Some of them are stark warnings while some others are calls for action. All shared a common understanding that we are really dealing with complex challenges.

For example, Minister for Forest and Environment, Nawal Kishor Sah Sudi, shared: "I encourage mayors of all metropolises and municipalities to come together to find a common solution for waste management. It’s time we all ‘walked the talk'."

National Assembly Chairperson Narayan Dahal focused instead on the essentiality of multi-stakeholders’ partnerships.

“It is inadequate for a district, a province or a country alone to prevent climate change, so the whole community must make a joint commitment. Nepal must adopt environment-friendly development processes. This is the responsibility of the government as well as all concerned stakeholders”.

Member of Parliament Uday Rana came up with a stark statement instead: “By 2050, our GDP will lose 2.2 percent annually if we are not careful about climate change”.

Chiribabu Maharjan, Mayor, Lalitpur Metropolitan City, highlighted issues related to bureaucratic red tapes and lack of collaboration.

“We wanted to start our own alternate landfill in a no-man’s land to manage Lalitpur’s waste instead of sending waste to Banchere Dada and had allocated funds to do so. But the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal stopped us from doing so. Also, the mayors of Kathmandu Valley have not reached a consensus on an integrated waste management solution. Now the ball is in the Prime Minister’s court as the mayors have briefed him about the problem”, he said.

These quotes do offer a view of the challenges facing Nepal’s elected officials, real conundrums, really hard situations to deal with but then how to turn words into deeds?

Moreover, hearing the challenges from the politicians is not enough. What do young professionals like Mansingh think?

What is his own view about what should be done, according to him, to change the status quo?

“Fixing local governments and the way they operate is paramount,” he shared with me, adding: “As a young public health professional and a climate change advocate, I am hopeful about the role of local governments in combating climate change and preserving biodiversity. Local governments are positioned and have full authority to implement tailored solutions that directly address the environmental needs of their communities independently. By leveraging local knowledge and resources, they can create impactful, sustainable initiatives at their levels”.

However, he himself recognizes how hard it is to get things done in the public sector.

“The challenge lies in implementing existing policies effectively,” he explains.

Then Mansingh elaborated a multifaceted approach. These are generic principles but they are at the foundations of effective multi partnership solutions

Strong leadership: “Local leaders must prioritize climate action and biodiversity preservation, integrating them into their core agenda. This involves setting strategic and achievable targets, allocating adequate resources, and ensuring transparency and accountability,” Mansingh highlighted.

Youth at the forefront: “Engaging the community and youth is crucial. Public participation in policy-making processes ensures that initiatives are relevant and supported. Education campaigns can raise awareness on the benefits of climate action and biodiversity conservation, fostering a culture of environmental stewardship,” he further explained to me.

Collaboration and People, Public, and Private Partnerships: “Finally”, he added, “we need collaboration between government, private sectors, non-profits and academic institutions that can drive innovation and resource-sharing. Such partnerships can lead to the development of effective strategies and the pooling of resources needed for large-scale projects”.

Mansingh really believes that youths can play a huge role in holding governments of different levels accountable. Here is his blueprint for action that builds on the above principles.

1)      Education and awareness: Capacity enhancement sessions to youths about climate policies and their importance so that they can lead awareness campaigns and inclusion in educational curricula and amplify the advocacy to empower young people to become informed advocates.

2)      Grassroots movements: Youth-led organizations and movements can mobilize communities and create pressure for political action. Social media and digital platforms are powerful tools for organizing and amplifying voices.

3)      Partnerships with NGOs/CSOs and other partners: Collaborating with established environmental and public health NGOs can provide youths with resources, mentorship and a platform to influence policy.

“By fostering an engaged, informed and active youth population, we hope to have a resilient movement that holds all levels of government accountable and drives meaningful climate action and biodiversity preservation” was Mansingh’s last key message in our conversation.

Indeed, finding innovative and meaningful (rather than tokenistic) opportunities to engage youths on a consistent basis should be an imperative for policy makers.

Actually, engagement should just be the beginning of a new spectrum of policy making that is centered on youths.

The final end of this framework must elevate young citizens of the country in a position to take real decisions. In short, this means that youths should have some power.

And the focus should be on all youths, also those from vulnerable backgrounds and this is a huge challenge itself that we need to solve.

And by the way, we do not need to wait for the next World Environment Day to bring stakeholders together. As important as the Waste Management and Climate Change conference was, more value for money, effective ways can be found to bring people together.