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One of the darkest page in Nepal’s modern history was written on Sept 8, when a democratically elected political leader, Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak from the Nepali Congress, ordered  police force to use lethal force against students clad in school and college uniform, killing 19 in a single day, in New Baneshwor, Kathmandu. 

These young protesters were peacefully demanding an end to systemic corruption and the creation of economic opportunities that would allow them to build their lives and careers in Nepal. Their vision was to acquire skills, education and professional experience at home, benefiting from the stability of their own communities and the support of their peers. In the preceding years and months, Amresh Singh, an independent Member of Parliament (MP) and other MPs from the Rastriya Swatantra Party, had been vigorously exposing high-level corruption, which had allegedly taken place with protection from leaders like Sher Bahadur Deuba of the Nepali Congress, Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli of the UML and Puspa Kamal Dhahal of the CPN (Maoist Center). 

The election of RSP leaders Rabi Lamichhane (Chitwan) and Gyanendra Shahi (Jumla) amplified these revelations, inspiring a national conversation about corruption. However, these voices were suppressed, and corruption continued unabated through scandal like the Visit Visa, Bhutanese Refugee, Wide-body Aircraft, Omni Trade, Patanjali, Giribandhu Tea Estate, Gold Smuggling, capturing big tenders and procurement of goods and services etc, as well as through the political capture of constitutional bodies, court system and government agencies. Literally, these leaders from the NC, UML and the Maoist party have turned Nepal into a Banana republic of sorts.

Through the Gen Z movement, youths ultimately brought to public glare the extravagant lifestyles of leaders like Deuba, Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal, revealing vast sums of money and fueling public outrage. The situation escalated into violence, culminating in attacks on politicians’ homes, including the complete destruction of Deuba, Oli and Dahal residences. While such violence is indefensible in a civilized society, it was a direct response to the perceived capture of state institutions to safeguard their mayhem of corruption. The resulting riots inflicted billions of rupees  of damage to government buildings, including Singhadurbar, the Supreme Court and the Parliament Building,  private houses, businesses, at the expense of the nation and her people.

Economic challenges

Following the political fallout, an independent government was formed under the leadership of a former Chief Justice, Sushila Karki, regarded as an “anti-corruption” crusader. On Sept 15, her cabinet was expanded to include key ministries such as Finance, Energy, Home, and Law. The new Finance Minister, Rameshwor Khanal, has the monumental task of crafting an economic policy for the GenZ horizon. 

However, his background is purely administrative, centered on bureaucratic procedure rather than economic policy design expertise. An effective economic policy is a dynamic  economic science focused on  co-integration of fiscal-monetary policy: generating opportunities, creating robust domestic revenue, unwrapping investment opportunities, and making strategic public investments that yield high social returns on public investments (SROI), maximize welfare, and promote  fairness—equality. 

Ancient treatises  of Kautilya, which outline principles of statecraft and sound public finance management, remain relevant for modern economies and underscore the importance of this expertise. For over three decades, successive governments under the Nepali Congress, UML and the Maoist Center (for the last 18 years at the center of Singhadurbar) have utterly failed to deliver essential public goods/services or generate meaningful economic activity and corruption-free governance. Their focus remained on their own political groups’ politics and welfare of their informal wings rather than on public welfare and national development.

A policy framework for Gen Z

Minister Khanal’s policy framework must be fundamentally reoriented toward a public economics approach, which rigorously examines how state intervention shapes individual choices and collective socioeconomic outcomes by expanding space of opportunities, enhancing agency and function. This necessitates an empirical strategy, directly informed by the material conditions and aspirations of Gen Z that integrates macro and microeconomic lenses. At the macro level, this means prioritizing youth employment, education reform, production and inflation control. Microeconomically, it requires targeted analysis of specific sectors, including arts, culture,  sports, entertainments, recreation, housing and natural resources to design effective interventions. 

Critically, this approach demands moving beyond orthodox budgetary triage (current vs capital expenditure) by instituting a dedicated “Gen Z budget segment.” This innovative mechanism would directly fund education reform, vocational training, research, startups and federal-level internships to counter systemic brain drain. Such planning must be evidence-based, replacing politically-driven “shopping list” allocations with rigorous input-output empirical analyses to shift resources from recurrent spending to productive capital investment. 

Furthermore, policy must balance the preservation of essential social safety nets with the creation of new, equitable opportunities for youth. Minister Khanal must recognize climate change not merely as a threat but as a source of externalities that can generate new careers in adaptation and mitigation. Strategically, prioritizing a clean energy sector through energy-derivative economic policies and digital economy innovation would capitalize on domestic potential rather than perpetuating a raw energy export model to India and Bangladesh.

Overcoming hurdles

Khanal’s most critical challenge is the structural reform of Nepal's compromised fiscal and monetary governance. This necessitates dismantling a culture of patronage within tax administration, where powerful private actors receive unwarranted incentives and waivers, and ending chronic issues like trade mis-invoicing and preferential financing. Furthermore, he must impose strict discipline on public loan-funded projects, which are plagued by poor selection, BOQ manipulation, procurement corruption and leads to massive costs and time overruns, often benefiting a narrow elite rather than the  common interests. 

Concurrently, his agenda requires a strategic reorientation of national economic policy. This involves aligning foreign grants and loans with domestic priorities to build local capacity and employ Nepali experts, rather than subsidizing costly foreign consultants. Tackling inflation through productivity gains, particularly in agriculture, and promoting high-value exports are essential for macroeconomic stability rather than stimulating remit and import tilted economy. Ultimately, his success hinges on the political will to confront rooted interests that have long subverted policy for private benefits.

The federal imperative

Minister Khanal’s paramount challenge is the strategic navigation of Nepal’s federal economic architecture to rectify profound spatial inequalities. For federalism to succeed, his policies must actively dismantle disparities by fostering economic co-integration and creating tangible opportunities across all provinces and marginal geographies, thereby strengthening national cohesion. However, the Ministry of Finance itself represents a significant institutional obstacle, characterized by bureaucratic inertia and a culture of rent seeking. 

Achieving reform demands an overhaul not only of the ministry but also of key affiliates agencies like the Investment Board of Nepal, which operates as a patronage network and the Nepal Rastra Bank, which must redirect monetary policy toward geographic inclusion. Furthermore, Minister Khanal must leverage his industry experience to confront unethical market practices, particularly pervasive cross-ownership in oligopolistic sectors, which distort competition and concentrate economic power.

His success hinges on transforming these deep-rooted structures to unlock Nepal’s economic potential and meet the demands for equitable governance as the Constitution 2015 has pictured clearly.  Ultimately, delivering on this ambitious agenda is the only way to honor the sacrifices of the past and build the stable, prosperous, and equitable Nepal that its citizens, particularly its youth, have fought for and rightly demand!

The events of the eighth and ninth September of this year (2025) were nightmares to Nepal. The first day showed the tyranny of our rulers who did not hesitate using excessive force on unarmed young demonstrators, just because they challenged government restrictions. The second day demonstrated how criminal minds could misuse popular demonstrations as camouflages, and carry out terrorist attacks on civilians, security forces, national institutions, public and private properties, destroy national archives, and loot.

The events, known as the GenZ movement, have taken at least 72 lives, and left over two thousand injured. Some are missing. Many families have lost their lifelines. Some have become homeless. Over ten thousand people have lost their jobs. Estimates are that the country has suffered an economic loss of Rs 3trn, 50 per cent more than the national budget of the current fiscal year. The mental trauma is beyond scale.

Illusion, disillusion, and illusion

Good governance, economic development, inclusive empowerment, and growth opportunity have remained core issues, at least since the 1951 Delhi Accord that ended the Rana dynasty’s direct rule. Dissatisfaction followed that and each of future settlements, ultimately leading to a cascade of political unrests or revolutions, at an approximate interval of one or two decades. Each time a new Constitution was promulgated, the proponents declared it as the “ultimate truth”.

To be brief, the 1951 Revolution pulled down the Rana family rule but consolidated the Shah dynasty while embracing plurality. While the multiparty system was taking root, the monarch scrapped the 1959 Constitution of the multiparty system, and introduced the 1962 Constitution institutionalizing Panchayati system—all in the name of the nation and good governance!

In due course, the multiparty system was reinstated through people’s movements and ultimate promulgation of the 1990 constitution. The disgruntled CPN (Maoist) waged a “People’s War” (1996–2006) against the system. The war and movements led by a seven-party alliance ultimately abolished the monarchy in 2008. After much debates, meddling from INGOs and foreign powers, formation of different caucuses of the Constitution Assembly (CA) members such as women, indigenous groups, and their training in foreign lands, failure of first elected CA, second CA election, collections of people’s suggestions and so on, Nepal was officially declared a federal republic through the 2015 Constitution. 

Article 4 of Part 1 of the Constitution clearly maintains that Nepal is socialism-oriented.

The Constitution is full of promises. It grants 31 fundamental rights to all citizens, including rights to equality, privacy, employment, health, education, food, housing, information and social security. Also included are many freedoms and rights of special groups. Then, why are people unhappy? Because people know that these promises are hollow. The Constitution promises mandatory free elementary education; the public discover the performance of most of the community schools very poor, and the haves are sending their kids to costly private schools. The book promises rights to health; the government sells poorly delivered health insurance to the ordinary, and pays for healthcare of the leaders in foreign hospitals. 

Leaders of parties who present themselves as “vanguards of democracy” issue dictating whips to their members in parliament to vote this or that way on national issues. Leaders, who brand themselves as communists, fail to show a role model, sometimes falling far below one practiced by an ordinary citizen.

Leaders show no shame. A leader tries to get an entry to the House through proportional pathway or direct nomination, after losing the first-past-the-post election. A leader tries to bring his wife, daughter or other relatives in the House, misusing the seats reserved for women. As in Bangladesh, resentments over these issues have built up in Nepali youths, which may foment further unrest in the coming days.

Profiteering has sucked. Schools do not pay the teachers even two-thirds of the fee students pay. Corporates and big houses do not pay their lowest paid worker even one-tenth of what the CEO receives. A doctor educated under government scholarship charges the patients the maximum possible in the market. 

Cartels are commonplace, from politics to business. In politics, the big parties have made provisions that only those receiving at least three percent of the valid votes are eligible to claim proportional seats. Denying healthy competitions based on quality parameters, MOE, MEC, and universities restrict or facilitate colleges, suiting their tastes. 

Policy corruption is rife at all levels: from land ownerships and use to tariffs to revenues to tax exemptions to biddings to clemencies.

Now to the most painful part. Look what happened on Sept 9. Some of those who hit the streets against corruption and for good governance were seen breaking and looting the private homes and markets. Chances are high that such hypocrisy is not limited to one age group.

Wake up, unite

It is time for introspection. People need to wake up, and so do the leaders. You put your voice; others, theirs. To count, let there be free, fair and secret voting. Let’s effectively ban vote-buying. Do not try to obstruct election campaigns of opponents.

Dear parties and leaders, refrain from selling populist slogans. If you mention, I mean it. You are free to propose any political system you like. If your votes allow, you can change the Constitution and laws. Deposit your election manifesto with the Election Commission, and make it public. Do not deviate from it. Do not make extra claims, do not entice the voters, explicitly or implicitly. Let the voters decide. Once the votes are counted, respect the verdict. If you are in a hung parliament, work as a team member, and support the majority. Obey the decisions, even when they are your antithesis. Unite within your party, or leave it. Unite within the parliament, not for the government but for national cause, or leave it. Do not seek external support against your fellow members in your party or parliament.

We need to move forward. We have destroyed our property, damaged infrastructure, caused human fatalities, and injured thousands. Let’s heal the wounds on our own. Let’s not seek external aid and donation. After destroying the economy equivalent to one and a half years’ national budget in just 10 hours, we should feel ashamed to beg and refrain from accepting external aid. Let’s all stakeholders, including different level governments, political parties, businessmen and workers, discuss together and frame a long-term, stable economic policy, encouraging domestic capital, brain and workforce to play their roles in the national reconstruction. Do not forget to include Nepali diaspora in the process. By virtue of their connections and exposure, they may offer far more to national pride than we can imagine.

For trade and development, 2025 is a year like no other. Tariff talks continue to grab headlines. But urgent action is also needed to stop the sun setting on trade development cooperation. This June in Sevilla, global leaders committed to scaling up Aid for Trade (AfT), including doubling AfT provision to the world’s least-developed countries (LDCs), by 2031. However, AfT—which accounts for about one-fifth of official development assistance (ODA)—remains highly exposed to some difficult development assistance challenges. 

ODA dropped seven percent in 2024. And this downward trend is accelerating, with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) predicting ODA declines of between 10 percent and 18 percent during 2027. LDCs are expected to experience the sharpest falls—of between 13 percent and 25 percent—in 2025. Statistics for AfT specifically are also sobering. In 2023, AfT disbursements fell six percent—from $53bn in 2022 to $50bn in 2023.

Meanwhile, trade needs—from addressing proliferating standards to deepening digital trade cooperation and finding ways to boost investment—are mounting. Targeted support is required to help developing economies, especially smaller ones, meet their trade needs, realize emerging trade opportunities and gain a greater share in global trade. 

Here are three ways we can help deliver on this, despite a challenging backdrop.

Maximum impact from resources

A wealth of knowledge on trade support has been generated over the years. So we have been working to capture experiences and lessons learned. One clear takeaway is that trade support should remain demand-driven, with tailored solutions helping translate global best practices into context-specific impact. For example, the Pacific Aid for Trade Strategy, which focuses on e-commerce, services and connectivity, has been helping to improve trade competitiveness in the region with limited available resources.

In addition, engaging local business remains vital for gaining real-time insights into the most pressing trade challenges, and tapping much-needed finance. For example, the Next Innovation with Japan Initiative has been providing venture capital to help startups in developing countries create new industries and jobs. Having access to information about best practices in trade negotiations and the implementation of trade rules can also be a game changer for policymakers in developing countries. 

Don Stephenson, trade and investment advisor to the Expert Deployment Mechanism for Trade and Development, made the point very well when he said: “Many trade development needs require large investments—to build trade infrastructure like ports and roads, or to increase productive capacity, such as through building factories. These investments must involve the private sector, where the big money is. But sometimes the development gap is knowledge. This is something that can be delivered through investments which are relatively small but that have a large impact.”

WTO’s trade support

The WTO’s technical assistance can play an important role here. Targeted and nimble trade support can help developing economies implement what’s been agreed and gain insights on the latest trade trends. Against a backdrop of declining resources, WTO members are exchanging ideas on how to do more with less, including by building strategic partnerships with international organizations, development agencies and academic institutions.

During my conversations with delegations, I often hear of the need for a one-stop shop for all trade support offered by the WTO. Another recurring suggestion is that we blend online training with face-to-face activities. Encouragingly, everyone agrees that focusing on the WTO’s most vulnerable members should remain central.

Rethink AfT

As we approach the WTO’s 14th Ministerial Conference and the 20th anniversary of the Aid for Trade Initiative next year, 2025 offers an excellent opportunity to reflect on where we are with trade development and where we would like to be. Australia and Barbados, for example, have put forward some ideas to revitalise Aid for Trade.

Over the past 20 years, $730bn has been invested in Aid for Trade to help developing economies, including LDCs, strengthen their capacity to trade. The vast majority of this—97 percent—has been directed at strengthening infrastructure and productive sectors. However, only three percent has been allocated to trade policy and regulations—areas that are crucial for helping create an enabling environment in developing economies for trade and investment. 

Focusing more on channelling trade support toward trade policy and regulations is therefore one practical way we can bolster the integration of developing economies into the multilateral trading system. To explore more ideas on how to help smaller economies boost their share of global trade, join the conversation at the WTO Public Forum on Sept 18.

Arundhati Roy goes:Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing. 

Social movements usually rely on collective imagination to claim that “another world is possible”. For the people involved in social and political movements, this “another world” is imagined as a just, fair, and equitable society, where everything is orderly and harmonious. The same idea I found while talking to a couple of GenZ during their recent demonstration against corruption, misgovernance and social media ban in Nepal.

Nepal has witnessed multiple social movements aiming toward a collective desire to sustain democratic values, freedom, equality, social justice and accountability. The people’s movement of 1990 ended the absolute monarchy and established a constitutional monarchy, whereas the popular movement of 2006 dethroned the monarch and established constitutional supremacy. These movements drifted the nation away from authoritarian control and toward self-determination and freedom.

However, despite these uprisings, Nepal has not got the corruption-free and just society that the citizens fought for. When one regime fails, another adopts the same old system instead of dismantling the corrupt system. Many leaders who rose from the movements later became a part of the institution, where the ideals of justice got absorbed into party politics. One prime example is the leaders of the Maoist revolution, who joined mainstream politics after the 2006 movement and eventually became enmeshed in political power struggles by forgetting the ethos of the revolution.

Despite the re-imagination of a corruption-free society, Nepal got caught in a downward spiral because Nepali politics has long run on corruption. When the political ideals enter the political realm, they encounter power hierarchies and systemic corruption. The collective dream of an ideal state cannot survive the messiness of governance. Corruption or inequality isn’t just in “bad leaders”—it’s embedded in political and economic systems, social hierarchies and even thought processes. It is because human behavior, vested interests, and cultural norms are tied to the very injustices they want to change. 

Another reason why corruption thrives in Nepal is because the supposed opposition is nothing more than the government’s shadow. There is an absence of genuine opposition. Instead of holding the government accountable, the opposition has colluded in the same practices, which leaves no real voice for the checks and balances essential for a healthy democracy.

Social movements, then, act as critical mirrors of society. They show what is intolerable, highlight the problems in the existing society and demand something radically different. These movements turn imagination into political energy and invite society to re-imagine itself. Moreover, they help people imagine a better world together and take action to make it happen. Yet, justice and corruption-free governance are not single-issue goals. They require transformation at several levels—economic, cultural, political and personal. Different movements emerge to tackle different angles of this complex problem.

When the political ideals of the 2006 movement failed, Nepali youths began questioning the lifestyles of politicians’ children. Their brandishment of wealth and an elevated lifestyle, while commoners were forced to migrate to other countries in the Gulf and beyond for meager earnings, were intolerable. The country ran on remittance, and the citizens struggled for a decent life with basic education, health and other services. In such a situation, seeing the children of politicians living a lavish lifestyle agitated the masses. Using social media as a liberal platform, #Nepobaby and #Nepokid started trending. The ban imposed on social media added fuel to the fire, paving the way for the protest to move from digital platforms to the streets. The death of 19 young people on Aug 25 escalated the protest. In the aftermath of the protest, the buildings of all three bodies of the government—legislative, executive and judicial—turned into ashes and Nepal got its first female prime minister.

Even after the appointment of a new prime minister, the struggle towards a corruption-free state is far from over. It is just a stepping stone. Prime Minister Sushila Karki, a former Chief Justice, has many challenges to tackle. To uproot corruption is not an easy task, as corruption isn’t only a top-level problem—it has normalized into everyday practices such as bribes for jobs, favors in bureaucracy and informal payments.

Despite multiple movements emerging for the same end, a corruption-free state remains elusive. As a result, the same “end” is pursued repeatedly—it is never final, but always in process. The “failure” is actually a part of the utopian condition. Ruth Levitas calls utopia a method: it continually critiques, imagines and pushes boundaries, but does not deliver a once-and-for-all solution.

The necessity of multiple movements shows that utopia is alive—it keeps re-emerging wherever injustice persists. Nepal may not achieve its dream of an ideal corruption-free nation anytime soon. But the repeated protests, movements and revolutions are democratic processes that keep the possibility of achieving that end alive. That utopian dream remains somewhere out there on the horizon. For now, the achievement of movements like this lies in realizing democratic values and unifying voices against injustice. It reminds us that the citizens are the watchdogs and protectors of democracy.