English - Support to Participatory Constitution Building in Nepal ...

The forgotten forcesThe Kathmandu Declaration 5 issued by the third NRN Global Conference on17 th October, 2007 and recently the declaration of the regional conferencein Bangkok in November 2008 show their commitment towards helpingNepal to achieve long-term peace and development. For economicassistance, it has ensured to promote tourism and establish welfare fundsfor foreign employment. It is in the process of generating US$ 100 millionsto invest in Nepal. Besides financial assistance, it has other social interestslike in helping resolution of various problems encountered by Nepalesegoing abroad for foreign employment, promoting export of Nepaliproducts under economic diplomacy, to name a few. It has the policy thateach chapter would initiate at least one philanthropic project in Nepal.All the presented cases show that the rate of migration is on rise andmigrants are becoming significant part of our socio-economic life, be asremitters, as absent human resources or due to their multi-local livelihoods,networks, interests and connections back home. At present state of globalfinancial crisis, expected to cause migrants to return to their home country,debates on whether to encourage or discourage migration is taking place.Remittances are considered to be a major mainstay of the economy but‘brain drain’, ‘muscle drain’ and loss of human resources as a whole isregarded to be a threat. Remittances, which is now said to be more thanthe official foreign aid are highlighted to be an important source to theattainment of the MDGs and the country’s Interim Plan while migrants’contribution to state-building through the new knowledge and skills, theirnew perspectives on daily practices back home and other contributions,that they may have possibly give, remain largely ignored. The followingfacts show that migration will continue and cannot be ignored in thestate-building process.4. Why to expect migration in post-conflict phaseA border point survey conducted by World Food Programme and NepalDevelopment Research Institute shows that 84.3 per cent of the migrants(here who migrated to India) intend to migrate again in near future andone per cent is not sure (WFP 2008). A recent study on Nepali migration toIndia (Adhikari and Gurung 2009) also pointed out that the main incentivefor migration is still the enhancement of livelihoods and consumption iscentral to migration.5See www.nrn.org.np/news_detail.php?newsid=154 for detail.174