National workshop on Global Financial Crisis -Posted on 6 Sep 2009
What are the causes of Global Financial Crisis(GFC): Where do Nepal stand? How is Nepal's economy doing and what are the challenges? What about Foreign Direct Investment in Nepal? What does it take to craft prosperous Nepal? Will entrepreneurship do it? Why global crisis matters in South Asia(SA) and how is the trade and economic cooperation functioning in SA
All these questions were answered at the National workshop organized by Youth Initiative(YI) in collaboration with Liberal Youth South Asia(LYSA),supported by Friedrich Naumann Foundation(FNF) from 4-6 September,2009.The workshop kicked off with the making of puzzle as an opening session where participants had an opportunity to mix up and introduce themselves along with their understanding on different topic such as globalization, rule of law, liberalism, property rights, lean management, entrepreneurship etc. This activity was followed by the presentation of YI and LYSA where participants had an overview about these organizations. The day was called off with the screening of the documentary entitled " The call of the Entrepreneur" followed by the discussion.
The day two began with the session "Understanding Global Financial Crisis" by Mr.Deependra Bahadur Chhetri, where participants had an insights on the historical anecdotes of financial crisis in recent past and its sources, cycles, characteristics and the impact of GFC in Nepal and its consequences. Then the following session was on "Nepalese economy and its challenges" where Mr. Gokarna Awasthi shared the situation of Nepalese economy in terms of GDP, Inflation, Investment, Consumption, Foreign Exchange Reserve and Budget Implementation Status. He further highlighted on the international trade and challenges for Nepalese economy in industrial sector, financial sector, real estate, tourism, foreign employment and ICT.
It was interesting to see the ideas of the participants in envisioning prosperous Nepal when the whole nation is talking about New Nepal. The butterfly brainstorming session with four visionary leaders was a good exercise for participants in putting their idea of new and prosperous Nepal. Almost all leaders presented that Nepal need to work on hydropower, tourism, education, employment and entrepreneurship to build up Prosperous Nepal. This visionary exercise was backed up by the interactive session on "Foreign Direct Investment "(FDI) with Mr. Prem Khanal where he gave upon clear picture on what FDI is all about, what benefit it brings, how does it lures into a country?
The final day began with the inspiring session by Mr. Anil Chitrakar on "Developing entrepreneurship" where he drew participants attention on having the importance of skills such as: communication, listening and valuing others. He further highlighted on creative destruction and constant innovation with understanding of context because success or failure of idea is not the idea itself, but the context. After the motivational session by Anil Chitrakar it was time for knowing trade and economic cooperation in South Asia. Mr. Kamalesh Adhikari shared some of the interesting factors that matters this global crisis such as high dependence on Export Earnings(Bhutan, Maldives, Sri Lanka), Remittance(Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka), Foreign Aid(Afghanistan and Nepal), Tourism(Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka) and India's significant linkages with the global economy, as well as with countries in the region. Besides, he also mentioned there are different factors that arouse external vulnerability for SA such as low level of intra-regional trade in goods, low level of intra-regional trade in service, low level of intra-regional investment and different political, economic, policy and institutional factors and international cooperation on trade, economy and finance. Finally participants had an interactive session with Mr. Tirtha Poudel with learning skills on "Advocacy Action".
YI and LYSA is honored to have following intellects as a Resource persons in our program:
6th September, 2009
Bhaktapur, Nepal
