KATHMANDU, MAY 17
On the afternoon of May 11, the Ujwal Thapa Foundation convened its fifth dialogue in a series that began with a simple but urgent question: what would it take for Nepalis who left to actually come back, or at the very least, invest in the country they grew up in?
The answer, as it turned out, was less about sentiment and more about law.
Samvad Shrrinkhala-5: Dialogue for the Future brought together Bineet Sharma, Chair and Instructor of the Computer Programming Certification programme at the University of California Santa Cruz Extension, Silicon Valley, representing the diaspora on the panel; Senior Advocate of the Supreme Court of Nepal Narayan Ghimire; economist and Executive Chairperson of the Institute for Integrated Development Studies Dr. Biswash Gauchan; physician and Rastriya Swatantra Party Central Committee Member Dr. Prabhat Adhikari; and Hon. Member of Parliament Sushil Khadka. The dialogue was moderated by policy researcher Pratisha Joshi.
Nepal wants to reach a $100 billion GDP by 2030-35. Its economy currently sits at roughly $43 billion. To close that gap in five to seven years would require annual growth of around 14 percent. The country's recent average has been closer to three percent. Dr. Biswash Gauchan did not sugarcoat it. The math does not work without structural change, and among the most critical levers available is the estimated five million Nepalis living abroad, whose collective wealth is thought to exceed $50 to $70 billion.
The problem is that Nepal has not made it easy for that wealth to come home.
Remittances already account for nearly 27 percent of Nepal's GDP, the highest dependency ratio in South Asia. But remittances, as Bineet Sharma pointed out, are not investment.
Sending money to a family member and opening a business are different things, and the legal environment in Nepal treats NRNs in a way that makes the latter far harder than it should be.
Under the Foreign Investment and Technology Transfer Act, NRNs are classified in the same category as foreign nationals. They face the same restrictions, the same minimum investment thresholds, the same barriers to operating in key sectors. A Nepali who moved to the United States twenty years ago and wants to start a healthcare company back home must navigate the same regulatory process as someone with no connection to Nepal at all.
Senior Advocate Narayan Ghimire was direct about why: Article 14 of the Constitution, which recognises NRNs as a distinct category of identity, does not, in practice, grant them the rights that recognition implies. Without a constitutional amendment, he argued, little else can change.
The consequences extend beyond investment. Dr. Prabhat Adhikari presented data showing that approximately 35 percent of Nepali males aged 20 to 44 are currently abroad. In 2024 alone, 1.67 million Nepalis left the country. Voter turnout has fallen from 78 percent in 2013 to under 62 percent in 2022, a trend directly linked to the mass absence of eligible young voters. In healthcare, the shortage is acute. Nepal needs 106 cardiothoracic surgeons and has 24. The Nepal Medical Council recently struck doctors who had taken foreign citizenship off its registry, blocking them from practicing even if they wished to return and serve.
"If we do not act now," Adhikari said, "somebody else will fill the vacuum. Legally or otherwise."
Bineet Sharma described the NRN citizenship framework as a three-tier system that effectively places diaspora members at the bottom. They cannot vote. They cannot hold political office. They face a proposed 50 percent capital gains tax on property sales. For someone considering where to put their money, he said, Nepal is simply not competitive.
What the dialogue called for, in sum, was a set of reforms that are technically straightforward but politically difficult. An amendment to Article 14 of the Constitution to meaningfully protect NRN rights. A dedicated diaspora investment window with dispute resolution mechanisms. Recognition of foreign professional credentials so that doctors, engineers, and specialists trained abroad can work in Nepal without being asked to start over. And a signal, clear and credible, that Nepal sees its diaspora as partners rather than a source of remittances.
Hon. Sushil Khadka, the RSP Member of Parliament who joined the panel, acknowledged the legislative gap and indicated openness to moving forward on NRN-related amendments.
Erica Adhikari, who established the Ujwal Thapa Foundation in memory of her late husband to continue his legacy, described the dialogue series as an attempt to create a neutral space where ideas can travel between those who stayed and those who left. Ujwal Thapa, who passed away during the COVID pandemic, had spent years advocating for alternative politics and youth leadership in Nepal.
Change, according to Adhikari, is possible. It just tends to be slow.
The Ujwal Thapa Foundation plans to share the full session on its YouTube channel and submit the dialogue's key proposals for consideration in ongoing policy discussions.