Migration, as one of the biggest supporters of Nepal’s poorest regions and tourist industry, has accidentally caused a massive financial problem.
Remittances represent more than a quarter of Nepal’s economic output. Family values and structures have adapted neatly to this financial given, with many villagers now favouring male children as they are seen as the ideal migrant sex. Many Nepalese hope that migrant workers from their families will assist them with the financial turmoil caused by the civil war, followed by devastating earthquakes.
The pandemic means that migrant workers previously evading death and injury at work abroad, evade the same risks- but now without a home. Migrant workers are experiencing the bony drumming finger of coronavirus cases growing louder and louder as crowded labour camps, in countries such as India, become a breeding ground for the virus.
Nepali Foreign Minister says that 211,000 Nepalis need to be rescued and repatriated immediately. Many of these ‘rescued’ peoples will have to face paying down their unregulated loans and be taken to secure visas to work abroad, following the selling of their ancestral land.
Initiatives to patch up this financial disaster include Nepal’s central bank helping with lower rate loans for entrepreneurial activities such as commercial farming which citizens could be encouraged to shift into from subsistence agriculture. Digitization has also been argued to be the fruit of a solution to reduce informal remittance channels by encouraging Nepali migrants to open bank accounts in their host countries, with transactions being made more attractive by remittance service providers by attaching inclusive financial products tailored to their needs.
Ironically, it has been this promise of westernization (migration) that has caused these large international structural weaknesses to show, and now, once again it is the digitization onslaught by westernization that promises a solution.
How far can we trust these broken promises?
Remittances have been crucial in meeting a high revenue growth in Nepal, with imported goods financed by remittances and HDI being skyrocketed.
Unfortunately, “Remittances have been the major source of liquidity”. How long can international banks stave off these problems?
This is a question for a post-coronavirus world.
Written by Lilly Horvath-Makkos
Media by Ben Hyland
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