Sujeev  Shakya  dabbles across many worlds. He is the founder CEO of Beed Management, a Nepal based management consulting and financial  advisory firm.  He chairs the Nepal Economic Forum that acts as a private sector interface to development and is author of the bestseller Unleashing Nepal – Past, Present and Future of the Economy (Penguin) and conducts leadership thinkshops as thought facilitator. He is a Chartered Accountant, who completed his Diploma in International Marketing from Boston University and recently completed Certificate in Coaching from Columbia University. He was awarded the Hubert H Humphrey Fellowship by the US Department of State. He spoke to The Himalayan Times about the significance of the first Himalayan Consensus Summit that starts today in Kathmandu.

What is the significance of the Himalayan Consensus Summit for Nepal?

Himalayan Consensus is an alternative Himalayan paradigm being thought about to bring together some new ways to look at sustainable economic development. In Nepal, especially post-earthquake, we have been trying to see how to reconstruct in the short run, but what are the things we can think of for the long term and as a fragile ecological centre. So basically, it is about seeing new ways to look at development, be it how you are consuming resources, the supply of resources or about the amount of money required to keep economies going and so in that context the Summit brings together some thought leaders to see what can be done.

Nepal being in the middle of The Himalayan region is a fitting starting point, but the Himalayas don’t have political boundaries. The problems in the region are the same, the issues are the same and so it’s about how we look at an alternative sustainable development paradigm.

Nepal with the New Constitution is ready for economic transformation. What can politicians learn or gain from this summit?

Politics in Nepal is definitely in transition. And so one can continuously blame politics for everything and not do anything, but the other thing is to say, given the current framework that we have, what are some of the things that we can do.

For instance in the areas of rebuilding, can we look at heritage conservation as a business? That would not only help conservation but at the same time build tourism profiles and help create jobs. Similarly, in the renewable energy space, because we have this energy crisis there has been a lot of innovation. So if there is some global interest in these areas, I think the piloting can happen in Nepal and be replicated in other areas of the Himalayas. These could also be Nepali businesses with domestic-international capital. So we need to look at the big picture in the long term, because economic development is the key and we have neglected it a lot and our focus has been largely on politics. We love to be engaged in politics, but now it’s time to take a view of 2030 and see what is required and what development paradigms do we need to take another look at.

With the focus on reconstruction and building infrastructure in Nepal how helpful will the summit be in providing local Himalayan solutions rather than just replicating models from other countries?

Yes, in fact one the sessions is focused on this. We will look at what should be the new urban planning. We live in urban sprawls and we are replicating the architecture that is basically focused on using land as much as possible without developing necessary infrastructure. That has been our urban development model and so there are drainage problems, problems with water etc.

There are many opportunities to build urban centres that look at open space especially after the disasters. Also how do we look at renewing our water resources? Or shifting our focus to renewable energy? So these are the areas that we want to look at. What could the new Himalayan urban centre look like? We have gone and built matchboxes throughout the Himalayas and cut down trees. So we need to look at this afresh and also if you have beautiful cities they become tourist attractions and attractions for a lot of people to spend more time here.

Yes we have challenges of population growth, there is pressure on land and infrastructure, but we see that for Nepal’s economic growth we need sustainable infrastructure development and how do we have infrastructure development that is also very mindful of the environment and do it in a way that sustains resources over a period of time.

What kind of follow up or action can we expect after the summit is over?

Nepal economic forum was always looking for new alternative development paradigms and then we got to meet Lawrence Brahm who had this great idea of Himalayan Consensus and we felt why don’t we work together. The idea is to continuously have this discourse across the Himalayas and then the Himalayan Consensus Institute will explore how we take some of the key issues that come out at the summit and turn them into tangible projects. By projects we don’t mean donor money coming in. But ways in which we can get investments and impact the business world. There is tremendous interest from our development partners and we feel we can take some key lessons and convert them into actionable projects

Also Nepal has been the centre of a lot of Himalayan studies across very different fields. So how do we bring all these people together? This conference does not cover all of them, but there is a lot to be done and so we are also looking at bringing them together and to start looking at these issues with a fresh pair of lenses. We have talked about the problems for a long time but this time we want to focus on what could be some of the new solutions. We want to focus on the paradigm shift in that is needed and how we should view development.