KATHMANDU, JUNE 3

A new publication ‘Conquering COV- ID-19’ Strategy for Making Nepal Stronger and Resilient – Strategy Exploration Summary has been released here, which states the country is in a unique position to conquer the pandemic and bring more prosperity and well-being to its citizens.

“The government and citizens are at a critical juncture, where they can collectively take a best practices-based strategic approach to the crisis and actively attack this dilemma or they can allow the country to be victimised by the crisis and bad governance as many countries on the planet have suffered,” a media release has quoted David Frigstad, chairman of Frost & Sullivan, California, as saying. “Nepal has many assets at its disposal despite being considered a poor country. We believe that Nepal is in a unique position to conquer COVID-19 and bring more economic prosperity and well-being to its citizens.”

The Strategy Exploration document has been prepared as a conversation starter to foster collaborations so as to collectively explore possible best practices that can be embraced by Nepal in face of the COVID-19 crisis. The document explores the strategies in three phases — respond, reset, rebound. Due to the uncertainty and altering nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, the document estimates that it could take anywhere between two years to four-and-a-half years to respond and rebound from the effects.

A delivery model of Adopt, Adapt, and Leapfrog, a new concept probable for Nepal, has also been proposed in the document. “Strategic delivery is key to achieving any strategy; the Adopt-Adapt-Leapfrog Model empowers the strategic delivery to achieve the actual desired impact, said Mangesh Lal Shrestha, contributing expert and coordinator of the study.

Finally, the document concludes with five major priorities as key areas for the way forward. The contributing experts have expressed their views on way forward priorities based on their experiences.

The Strategy Exploration document is a living and dynamic document in that the Institute will keep it updated regularly as the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds. The contributing experts have hoped that the document will be useful for policymakers and decision-makers in Nepal.

The publication was prepared by Frost & Sullivan Institute, with the support of the contributing experts —Frigstad; Bindu N Lohani, former vice-president of Asian Development Bank; Shankar P Sharma, senior economist and former vice chairman of National Planning Commission; Lal Shanker Ghimire, former secretary at Ministry of Finance; and Shrestha, entrepreneur and global vice-president for growth at Frost & Sullivan.

A version of this article appears in e-paper on June 4, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.