NRNA’S ORGANIZATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
As I had written in my note five years ago after my visit to Doha, our collective diaspora knowledge society comprises of various endeavors in areas such as remittances, social philanthropies, science, technology, health, entrepreneurship, start-up ventures, research, teaching, and innovative ideas. I had categorized these in three different types of capital –social, financial, and intellectual. The word intellectual here is meant to be inclusive to capture natural and behavioral sciences, technology and various forms of knowledge-driven innovative start-up ventures, creative skills and research. Financial means remittances, and passive and active investments. Social capital is another important element that helps create a community bonding and nurtures our humanity. It captures our diaspora activities in areas such as volunteerism, philanthropy, cultural activities, literature, arts, ethnic harmony, awareness, and a sense of ‘Nepaliness’. Collectively, we can call it diaspora knowledge society.
Harnessing this collective knowledge pool is the challenge for both the Government of Nepal and the NRNA leadership. That is, we must understand the organic nature of the knowledge pool and project it as our collective capital asset. To that end, the NRNA is a perfect platform and it has done so successfully leading up to the Houston Convention. But, NRNA also should remain open to constructive feedback and criticism. I have the following suggestion.
Creating a Ministry for Non-Resident Nepalis may be a good step. But the permanent and more farsighted move would be to give dual citizenship to the diaspora community including their descendants.
Many successful professional organizations in North America operate not as producers of knowledge projects, but as facilitators and platforms. We need to learn the lesson from that model and add that element to the NRNA’s operational philosophy without losing its role, when needed, as an incubator for some innovative projects and ideas. This ability was needed especially at the early stage of the movement, but the time has come to gradually shift focus. For example, thousands of expert volunteers from all over the world, driven by a common passion, come and contribute codes to create a brand called Linux. NRNA should also find a way to adopt a similar model.
In addition to being a vibrant platform for exchange of ideas and networking, the NRNA’s main goal is to provide public good to the millions of Nepali diaspora in the areas of, for example, dual citizenship, NRN ID card and other legal issues. But the only way we can accomplish this is not by being an adversary but by being an ally of the Government of Nepal. Both the current and the past presidents of the NRNA (Mr Hirachan and Dr Mahato) imparted that message to the attendants in Houston in front of the two ambassadors, Dr Shankar Sharma (US) and Mr Gyan Chandra Acharya (UN).
This message will be more powerful if the NRNA becomes successful in convincing the government that the diaspora knowledge society’s capital asset in all areas – social, financial, and intellectual – is vast, highly-productive, and well-meaning. That is, we need to convince the government that we are not just profit-seeking investors. They need to consider us as an extended family with vast knowledge, expertise, and passion.
GOVERNMENT OF NEPAL’S PERSPECTIVE
With the advent of information and communication technology (ICT), and because of its increasingly global reach, the nature, power and the resource pool of the diaspora have radically transformed the very concept of globalization. The traditional North and South division of donors-to-recipients linear development model is no longer valid. Nor the word “brain drain” carries any relevance. Especially, the ever growing and savvy professional diaspora pool has emerged as a force to reckon with. Many development organizations and donors have begun to realize the importance of diaspora communities and have developed initiatives in their policy debates and planning to understand this emerging knowledge society and how to harness it. The policymakers in Nepal will make a mistake if they fail to see this new emerging trend to view the diaspora as a readymade knowledge pool and perhaps even a viable market.
Just look at the portal Thamel.com, a conglomeration of many Nepali businesses, especially designed to cater to the needs of the Nepali diaspora communities. You can now order a ceremonial goat, a mother’s day gift or even a valentine rose bouquet right from your New York apartment to be delivered to your parental home in Nepal. Likewise, the Government of Nepal also needs to see the diaspora community as a pool of opportunities not just as a bunch of opportunists. The governments of India, South Africa, Sudan, Armenia, Israel, China, Brazil, Mexico, and Chile have developed various initiatives to harness their diaspora knowledge pool. Many governments have begun to harvest the payoff. For example, after years of Indian engineers’ performance and dominance in the US IT sectors like Intel, the US IT sectors began building factories in India bringing knowledge, jobs, and investment opportunities back to India. Without the Indian government’s positive attitude and a set of long-term policy vision, this would not have been possible. The Nepali government and its political leaders would also have to become similarly farsighted.
More than two million Nepalis from all across the Gulf, the Middle East, and the Far East send billions of rupees back home annually to keep the Nepali economy afloat during these tumultuous times. Then there are those hundreds of blogs and social networks creating a vibrant global community of Nepalis, basically redefining the meaning of spatial distance. We cannot put a price tag on this vast amount of social capital.
Similarly, over the last decade or so, the Nepali diaspora has seen a remarkable growth in its professional ranks: Students, researchers, consultants, and academicians – mainly in North America, Europe, and Australia. Every year, several thousand of Nepali youths come to the Western universities for higher education. These future engineers, doctors, researchers, professors, scientists, entrepreneurs, innovators, philanthropists, social workers, counselors, and teachers are going to generate an incredible amount of knowledge capital within the diaspora. We already saw a glimpse of it in Houston.
I met a young Nepali girl who has raised thousands of dollars for libraries in Nepal. I also ran into a Dalit young woman, a recent graduate from Boston, who has been actively supporting several thousand underprivileged Nepali children for schooling. This is just one of many of her projects. Watching a Silicon Valley/Nepal-based Nepali IT entrepreneur produce world-class animation was another pleasure, not to mention vibrant sessions on Nepali literature, children’s welfare, women’s empowerment, oil exploration, and earthquake scenarios. Then there were the wide-eyed young graduate students from MIT and UC Berkeley. I also saw countless engineers, venture capitalists, researchers, investors, experts, young entrepreneurs, doctors, graduate students, professors, and the hardworking Nepalis from the Far East and the Middle East. Nepali diaspora scholars also held discussions about the scholarly activities of a research center, the Nepal Study Center of the University of New Mexico, and its role in advancing diaspora knowledge networks. This is just a small sample out of a vast number of activities being undertaken in North America and elsewhere.
As usual, there were numerous passionately presented proposals such as the collective investment opportunity, Open University, and NRN investment funds. The bottom line is that they had all come with a glitter in their eyes, somehow to connect back to Nepal.
But, we are diverse, independent, sometimes territorial and adversarial, and unpredictable. Except for a few cases, our myriad personal efforts related to Nepal are mostly parochial. The new NRNA leadership needs to make further efforts to bring all of these together and project ourselves as a collective resourceful diaspora force in the form of a knowledge society.
Nepal needs to see the diaspora as a valuable asset ready to be harnessed, and they should adopt an efficient knowledge management style. Some Latin American countries have begun such initiatives. For example, instead of taxing the knowledge production process, it should create policies to promote “brain gain” or “brain circulation” and capture the bigger return. “Brain gain” occurs when the diaspora return to their home country and “brain circulation” reflects temporary visits by the diaspora. Creation of a Ministry for NRN diaspora may be a good step. But the permanent and more farsighted move would be to give dual citizenship to the diaspora community including their descendants. Children of diaspora Nepalis are also Nepalis but they need some coaxing and inducements to subscribe fully to this axiom. Once they do, they will form an even more vigorous future knowledge society. They will be in the cutting edge of the 21st Century, and investing in them now by simply extending this dual citizenship privilege will be a good investment for Nepal. At a minimum, a serious and thoughtful debate must be undertaken during this constitution-writing phase. With this farsighted vision, we can catch up and march alongside the two emerging neighboring powers India and China. With some smart policy move from the Nepali government, the ever expanding vast Nepali diaspora knowledge pool can join hands with the Nepali society back home to create an effective leverage against the two giants.
(Writer is Professor, Department of Economics, University of New Mexico.)
bohara@unm.edu
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