Professor D.D. Poudel; The Founder of the Asta-Ja Framework

Asta-Ja Framework: 
Asta-Ja is a theoretically grounded grassroots-based planning and management framework for conservation, development, and utilization of natural and human resources.

Asta-Ja means eight of the Nepali letter “Ja” [Jal (water), Jamin (land), Jungle (forest), Jadibuti (medicinal and aromatic plants), Janashakti (manpower), Janawar, (animals), Jarajuri (crop plants), and Jalabayu (climate)]. Asta-Ja promotes accelerated economic growth and socio-economic transformation of the nation.

It is a scientific, holistic, systematic, self-reliant, and multidisciplinary framework for the conservation, development, and utilization of Asta-Ja resources.

The eight elements of the Asta-Ja system are very intricately linked and strongly connected.

Hence, it is important to have sustainable conservation and development of each of the eight elements of Asta-Ja for better functioning of the entire system.

Asta-Ja Framework emphasizes community capacity building, self-reliant, and national, regional, and local level planning and development of environmental and natural resources for socio-economic transformation of the nation. Asta-Ja that constitute human and natural resources is the backbone of Nepal’s economy.

Therefore, the best governance of Asta-Ja is the ultimate goal of a government.
Nepal is struggling with the historic unemployment challenges.

Almost seven million youths are in foreign jobs in more than 100 countries.

There are nearly 400,000 Nepali students in foreign countries. Images of long ques of Nepalese youths for passports, foreign job applications, or at the airport for leaving their beloved country and family behind for foreign employment have become routine coverages of media.

Most tragic situation is when dead bodies of Nepalese workers return in boxes from foreign countries. On average, 680 Nepalese working in foreign countries die every year.

More than 7,500 Nepalese have died in the past eleven years. Despite many tall promises made by the political leaders in solving people’s problems, generating employment, and transforming Nepal to Singapore or Switzerland, socio-economic condition of the country is worsening day by day.

Unemployment Records:

Accurate data on Nepal’s unemployment rate is difficult to find. COVID-19 pandemic has reportedly added at least 1.

2 million people in the list of unemployment.

Nepal’s two third of the total population is below the age of 30, and nearly 512,000 youths enter into the job market every year.

Recent report from World Bank suggests an exceptionally high employment rate in the country in recent years with just about one third of the country’s total working age (15-64) population either unemployed or voluntarily inactive.

Nepal’s employment rate is the highest in South Asia. One of the websites presenting Nepal’s unemployment statistics, Statista (https://www.statista.com/statistics/422507/unemployment-rate-in-nepal/) presents Nepal’s unemployment rate reduced from 1.85% in 1999 to 1.47% in 2020.

Another website (https://tradingeconomics.com/nepal/unemployment-rate) reports unemployment rate range between 2.5% (2012) to 3.4% (2016) from 2011 to 2017.

These records may seem fantastic from the point of view of the employment capacity of Nepal.

However, the serious problem of these employment records is in the definition of “unemployment”.

In Nepal “…the unemployment rate measures the number of people actively looking for a job as a percentage of the labour force.” (https://tradingeconomics.com/nepal/unemployment-rate).

Since most Nepalese are engaged in subsistence agriculture, lack outside exposures and technical skills, are attached to their ancestral places and local communities, and do not perceive “jobs” as the primary means for their survival, defining unemployment as the number of people “actively looking for a job” is totally misleading.

It is hard to comprehend and interpret such employment records based on the ground reality that nearly seven million Nepalese are working outside the country in foreign jobs.

The issue here is identifying the percentage of total population who needs jobs and creating jobs for this population as opposed to just the percentage of population who is actively seeking for jobs.
COVID-19 Pandemic
Just like any other countries in the world, COVID-19 pandemic has severely affected Nepal.

Hundreds of thousands of migrant workers from India and other countries returned to Nepal in the beginning of the pandemic.

Among these returnees, more than half a million were from India.

There were very unpleasant images of returnees being held in the border and some of them crossing rivers to enter into their motherland.

In the absence of appropriate governmental programs on job creation, many of these migrant workers returned to India by Dashain time. Nepalese had a high expectation from the Government of Nepal will implement many revolutionary programs covering agriculture, trade, tourism, industry, and construction in order to create jobs and keep these returnees back home. However, no such initiatives were launched.
Massive Job Creation: 

In order to provide domestic employment for currently seven million Nepalese working in foreign countries along with increasing workforce at home, the Government of Nepal needs to create millions of jobs every year for several years.

This requires a huge national commitment for job creation.

Millions of jobs can be created annually through projects such as Highways construction and upgrade, urban mass transportation, hydroelectric dams and extension lines, tourism, environmental conservation, ecological restoration, climate change adaptation, mines and mineral industries, forest management and timber industries, organic agriculture for domestic and international markets, Information Technologies, medicinal and aromatic plant industries, ND cultural and pilgrimage sites development. National drive for employment generation and country’s development must be well supported by political and administrative system, the public and international communities.
Technical Skills

Technical skills and knowledge of working population is the fundamental factor deciding the pace of national development.

Nepal needs to revamp its educational system for developing technical skills among students, both at the Higher Secondary and College levels.

High school education must provide practical, hands-on, and laboratory opportunities targeting specific disciplines such as agriculture and environment, wildlife and forestry, mapping, public health, construction and engineering, Information Technology, plumbing and electricity, communication, climate, home economics, hospitality management, science and math, arts and music, language and other similar topics. Similarly, college education must further enhance the skills and knowledge of the students.

Worker’s Rights, Safety, and Security:

Nepal’s Constitution Section 3 Fundamental Rights and Duties Article (33) Rights to Employment guarantees employment to every citizen in Nepal and Article (33) Clause 2 guarantees the right to choose employment. Section 3 Article (29) Right against Exploitation Clause 4 states, “no one shall be forced to work against his or her will.”

The Government of Nepal must come up with appropriate laws, strategies, and initiatives for the implementation of this fundamental right to employment.

This constitutional provision itself demands immediate massive job creation in the country.

Informal to Formal Sector:

Currently, almost 90% of total jobs in Nepal are associated with informal sector such as agriculture, self-employed workers, household workers, and wageworkers, which lack the legal and the regulatory basis of the employment.

These job markets lack clear rules and guidelines on their working environment, wages and benefits, social security, taxation, and worker’s safety.

Because of such underlying job conditions, the productivity and the earnings of the workers is minimal.

Therefore, it is necessary to formalize the informal sector job markets as much as possible and bring them under national standards and guidelines so that the productivity and the earnings of labor will increase while worker’s rights, safety, security and accountability can also be persevered and enhanced.

This will also increase internal revenue generation for the country.
The Government of Nepal cannot continue letting more than 1,500 youths leaving the country every day for foreign jobs.

There must be heavy emphasis on domestic job creation and overall economic development of the country.

Although remittances coming from Nepalese workers in foreign jobs is an important element of Nepalese economy consisting of about 28% of national GDP, foreign remittances have been used largely in unproductive areas such as household consumption rather than productive areas such as businesses and the production of goods and services.

Much of this migrant worker’s hard-earned money is spent on private “Boarding” schools, largely due to the failure of government in delivering quality public education.

Spouses of migrant workers often leave their ancestral properties in rural areas and migrate to nearby areas where private schools for their children’s education are located.

Another major area of the expense of foreign remittance is the purchase of pieces of land for housing or the purchase of family homes often in a skyrocketed pricing.

Land brokers benefit the most out of the land markets. In order to meet housing demands, national housing development initiatives are necessary.

It is important for the Government of Nepal to give the highest priority in domestic employment, while appropriate management of Nepalese workers in foreign jobs as well as better handling of the foreign remittances is necessary.