Youth face challenges due to lack of policy implementation in Nepal

 

Kathmandu: Today is the International Youth Day. In Nepal too, youths are celebrating the day with the slogan ‘Youth participation for change: Youth engagement for employment generation and environmental protection’.

Youth are organizing various virtual campaigns since last week. The National Youth Council is also organizing a virtual session which was inaugurated by Prime Minister KP Oli.

The United Nations initiated the celebration of the National Youth Day from 199 with an objective to address the concerns of youth.

In Nepal, the celebration of Youth Day started only from 2004. Although the government listens to the concerns of youth and designs programs accordingly, youth are not able to benefit from such government schemes due to the lack of proper policies and their implementation.

Currently, millions of youths are unemployed due to Covid-19 pandemic. Experts have stressed on the need for the government to bring some relief programs focusing on the youth. According to Madhav Prashad Dhungel, vice-president of the National Youth Council, the government is working to address the concerns of youth.  He says that though a lot of work has been done in terms of the policy, there have been challenges in terms of implementation.

The government had brought a work procedure related to ‘Interest Grant for Subsidized Loan for the youth’ in 2075. But as the work procedure has not been fully implemented until now, only 28,687 youth have received the loan in two years.

“There are many programs which focus on youth entrepreneurship. If these programs could be implemented, the country would progress,” said the president of Youth Action Nepal.

Nepal is in 77^th position in terms of Youth Development Index. According to Ram Prasad Sapkota, coordinator of the National Youth Association, there isn’t any issue at the policy level. But in terms of implementation, there is a huge gap, said Sapkota.