Growing Pains: Youth and Employment Opportunities in Nepal (SLN 2)
One of Nepal’s greatest post conflict challenges is how to provide for and engage with its young labour force. In a country where 46% of young people aged 20-24 are ‘highly underutilized’ (according to the Nepal Labour Force Survey, 2008) much more needs to be done by the government and all development partners to halt a growing number of disaffected youth.
As a young Nepali, I believe one of the major obstacles to creating & maintaining jobs is the numerous numbers of bandhs (strikes) that threaten industries and the economy in Nepal. Every year it is estimated that 300,000 people enter the job market, and yet many questions remain: Are these youth ready to face the challenges that the market will be imposing on them? Are educated youth capable of writing a CV and confident in facing an interview? Are the less educated young people equipped with vocational skills?
The DFID-CSO Youth Guidance Project, in a small way aimed to unpack some of these difficult questions surrounding youth, and the lack of their participation towards employment policy and programming. The second ‘Sharing & Learning Network’ (SLN) session was hosted by DFID Nepal on 20 August and the participants (from a range of donor organizations and CSOs) focused on garnering information on these three questions:
- Do employment policies in Nepal make specific reference to youth and were they involved in the process?
- What initiatives (programmes) have government Ministries, donors and CSOs been implementing in order to engage youth in improving their employment opportunities and what can we learn from them?
- How has engaging youth improved policy/practice outcomes and influenced decision makers?
Yet, there are windows of opportunity. One of the participants at the SLN II, Basanti Pariyar (an intern at DFID) informed me that her internship has helped her understand how policies affect development, and how she is also learning office skills for her future employment. Basanti comes from Chitwan and she recently joined DFID Nepal at the beginning of August, and she is eager to learn more. With hundreds of youth leaving their homes in search for jobs Basanti feels privileged to find herself at DFID Nepal. She believes that the experience will help her future career, and encourages more organizations to offer such opportunities.
Basanti shared with me that “before the ‘Sharing and Learning Network’ I didn’t understand the youth employment scenario in Nepal, I now have a good insight into their situation through the experiences shared by development organizations trying to improve the situation of youth in Nepal”. She also wonders what the youth themselves think of the employment scenario that affects them, and encourages a national study to be undertaken. 
So, the SLN enabled us to begin to examine the challenges and potential solutions regarding youth and employment. Key lessons learnt form the SLN included:
- The need to reinvigorate values of dignity and pride relating to types of labor among youth.
- The importance of designing comprehensive interventions that provide not just vocational skill training, but also life skills, and business and marketing skills.
- Designing employment programmes in a way that does not cause conflict is crucial. For example through the involvement of youth themselves in designing the projects and reviewing them.
- Employment policy should directly acknowledge the youth cohort and directly address their needs through a sector wide approach.
- Focusing on specific youth target groups, such as conflict affected youth or internally displaced young people.
These were some of the common lessons that the participants felt could improve the youth employment scenario in Nepal. Definitely, there is a lot still to do on creating youth employment opportunities and employability in order to sustain peace in Nepal. It’s up to us as to whether we make a mountain of it – or a mole hill.
For the report please click here: Draft SLN 2 Nepal Report (Updated 04/09/09)
Samrat Katwal
Nepal Youth Participation Officer
