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

The forgotten forcesrecycling. Waste management has been a much contested issue in Nepal.This country could use the investment and expertise of NRNs and theirnetworks in recycling waste and recovering valuable minerals, which tillnow has not been practised in Nepal.One can encourage the diaspora to invest in Nepal by giving provisionsfor opening convertible foreign exchange accounts, repatriation of capitaland profit in convertible currency, exemption in tax, by giving specialprovisions like bonds which could also be sold by foreign banks (e.g. India’sResurgent India Bonds) etc.A lot of NRNs would like to come and spend their retired life in Nepal.Similarly, a lot send their children or visit Nepal themselves regularly. Thisopens their possibility to invest in properties (house, lands, flats etc.). SoNepali people could cash on it if they provide services to buy propertiesin Nepal from abroad. This has now been realised by the government andthe new approach of giving identification card to the NRNs is on the way.Most of the remittance in rural areas are transacted through informalchannels which makes transaction cost higher besides other negativeeffects. Nepal can promote local level organisations like local cooperatives,self-help financial groups, mother groups etc. in remittancetransfer. This will be beneficial for remitters (less costly and reliable) andto the institutions (more income). This also helps a culture of managingmoney and improving relation between financial sectors and the public.Governments of different countries like Pakistan, India, Mexico havestrategies to promote people to formal sectors like microfinance, creditunions etc. in remittance transfer. Like the Government of Pakistan, Nepalalso can keep remittance books and make provision of giving rewards andother facilities to regular remitters.These local level institutions could also take initiatives to teach bothremitters and receiving families in rural areas to improve their moneymanagement skills like investment, banking skills, tax paying etc. Suchinstitutions could also run investment promotion programmes bysupporting in investment, giving grants and credits to migrants or theirfamilies staying in the host country.As mentioned elsewhere in this chapter, around 70 per cent of migrantsare found to consume products from their country of origin (Orozco2005). It has been found that many small businesses created by diasporarely on nostalgic trade. This can increase the import of Nepalese productsto the host countries. It will also help promote local Nepali product tothe people of foreign countries. Government should promote nostalgic186