Experts urge govt to capitalise on bulging working-age population
KATHMANDU:
Experts have urged the government to formulate policies to capitalise on the huge share of working-age group in the country’s total population.
In the period between 1950 to 2050, the country will have the most number of people categorised under productive age group in the next three decades, as per Shankar Sharma, former vice chairman of the National Planning Commission. “The country should take advantage of this fact by creating more jobs within
the country by investing more on infrastructure development as against in social sectors at present.”
Speaking at a talk programme titled ‘Indian Public Policy Experience: Lessons for Nepal’ organised by Nepal Economic Forum (NEF), Sharma said that the country has gained from the demographic dividend in the form of remittance. “Due to huge inflow of remittance, which is equivalent to 25 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product, the government is in a comfort zone and not paying much attention to reforms,” said Sharma.
He urged the government to initiate reforms urgently to create a conducive environment to attract both foreign and domestic investment, which in turn would then generate more employment for a large number of working group population.
The latest estimate of Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) shows Nepal will have 55.50 per cent working group population in the age bracket of 15 to 49 years by 2031.
The government should expedite reforms by bringing required policies and laws, as per Sharma. Citing the recently initiated reform programmes of neighbouring India, Sharma urged the political leadership to complete the political transition soon. He also emphasised on the need for collaboration with Indian research institutions and think-tanks that could help in formulating feasible policies.
Sharing the experiences of India in the programme, Rajeev Malhotra, professor and executive director of Jindal School of Government and Public Policy, India said that India is growing faster as a global economic power due to political consensus for pragmatic policies rather than ideological ones. “After 1990, political leadership in India is shifting away from ideology and formulating people-oriented policies,” as per Malhotra.
Malhotra stressed on developing experts and revitalising institutions and said that is necessary to deliver appropriate public policies. Regarding policy reforms in economic dimension, as per Malhotra, South Asia region has very limited windows of opportunities, with one being its demographic profile. However, in India ratio of dependent population will increase by 2035.Likewise, Hari Sharma, director of Alliance for Social Dialogue, said that the public institutions are suffering since long due to lack of functioning democracy, which has resulted in public policies not designed and implemented accordingly. He stressed on systemic consensus among political forces to revitalise public institutions.
Source: THT
