As Nepal continues to build the complex architecture of federalism, bridging the wide gap between constitutional promises and meaningful public service delivery has become one of the country's defining democratic challenges. Addressing this systemic friction requires confronting a question that has received far too little attention: Why does Nepal need a Policy Research Institute (PRI), and what structural role should it serve?
In the architecture of the modern state, public policy think tanks have emerged to bridge the divide between transactional politics and a rigid bureaucracy. Political leaders are often constrained by short electoral cycles. Their strategic calculations are dominated by what was promised in the last election and what must be offered in the next. Conversely, the civil service remains preoccupied with the demands of day-to-day administration. Burdened by procedural responsibilities, bureaucrats rarely have either the incentive or the institutional space to challenge inherited policy assumptions or overcome long-standing governance failures. Think tanks help bridge this innovation gap by injecting long-term, evidence-based thinking into policymaking.
In 2015, the Government of India replaced its colonial-era Planning Commission with the NITI Aayog to provide governments at all levels with strategic policy guidance on both structural and emerging challenges. Similarly, Western democracies rely on institutions such as Chatham House in the United Kingdom and the Brookings Institution in the United States to generate independent policy analysis. These institutional models recognize that neither politicians nor administrators are structurally equipped to think deeply, independently, and strategically about persistent inequalities and long-term national challenges.
Nepal entered this policy arena relatively late. In 2018, the government established the PRI through an executive order to support policymaking across a broad range of sectors, including socio-economic development, governance, national security, and international relations. The institute represented an effort to move away from a "thin" model of governance driven by political expediency toward a "thick" democracy grounded in evidence and public accountability. Yet, nearly a decade into Nepal's federal experiment, an important question remains: Is the PRI functioning as the intellectual anchor capable of addressing the country's historical legacies while responding to contemporary domestic and geopolitical challenges?
PRI, CNI to work on policy, research areas
An objective assessment presents a mixed picture. Although the PRI's institutional design reflects a genuine commitment to policy innovation, its implementation has been hampered by an entrenched culture that often treats the institution as a post-retirement destination for senior bureaucrats. Over the years, this legacy mindset has discouraged critical inquiry and innovation. Fresh ideas and younger researchers have frequently been sidelined, driven by institutional resistance to change. As a result, the PRI's true potential has been constrained by the very bureaucratic inertia it was created to overcome.
Dismantling the Epistemic Overlap
There is, however, a reason for optimism. The government has recently initiated reforms aimed at addressing the long-standing institutional overlap between the PRI and the National Planning Commission (NPC). For years, both institutions have operated in parallel, often duplicating or conflicting in their roles relating to macroeconomic planning and strategic policy research. The ongoing restructuring presents an important opportunity to eliminate this overlap and establish a coherent evidence-based planning system.
Although the details of the restructuring have yet to be made public, the initiative offers a timely opportunity to dismantle institutional silos. Under a reformed framework, the PRI should function as an independent generator of empirical policy research, while the NPC should incorporate those findings into national development strategies and fiscal planning. As Nepal prepares for its graduation from Least Developed Country (LDC) status, such policy coordination is more important than ever. It is essential not only to free the PRI from bureaucratic constraints but also to transform it into a trusted institution capable of identifying emerging policy challenges and proposing practical solutions. Successfully managing this transition will require independent, forward-looking research.
The PRI should also broaden its research agenda to address both long-standing structural inequalities and emerging national priorities. It should examine issues such as landlessness, caste-based discrimination, and gender inequality while identifying why constitutional guarantees of dignity and equality have yet to translate into meaningful change for many citizens. The institute should recommend concrete policy measures that local governments can adopt to dismantle entrenched patterns of exclusion. Equally important, it should evaluate whether decentralized governance structures themselves are reproducing the very inequalities they were established to eliminate.
Alongside these structural concerns, the PRI must also focus on pressing contemporary challenges. It should assess the economic implications of Nepal's graduation from LDC status, particularly the loss of preferential trade access for domestic industries. It should develop policy options to address the ongoing crisis in the cooperative financial sector and protect the savings of ordinary citizens from financial mismanagement. Likewise, the institute should formulate a long-term strategy to reduce Nepal's dependence on remittances by promoting digital services and knowledge-based industries, identifying the infrastructure and educational investments needed to prepare young people for high-value employment.
Environmental, demographic, and institutional challenges also demand urgent attention. The PRI should study the rapid depopulation of Nepal's hill regions, the growing impact of climate change on agriculture and rural livelihoods, and the institutional reforms required to ensure the effective functioning of the federal system.
In the field of international relations, the institute should provide rigorous analysis of evolving geopolitical dynamics. It should examine how initiatives such as China's Belt and Road Initiative and the US Millennium Challenge Corporation can be leveraged to advance Nepal's national interests. It should also equip policymakers with objective, non-partisan analysis to navigate regional power dynamics while capitalizing on global shifts in trade, connectivity, and technological development.
Ultimately, the success of the ongoing restructuring will depend on one essential condition: safeguarding the PRI's operational independence and intellectual autonomy. No think tank can produce transformative ideas if it remains institutionally constrained. For evidence-based policymaking to succeed, the PRI must serve as an independent source of rigorous analysis rather than an extension of the state bureaucracy.
The author writes on human rights, peace, civic space, and transformative politics.
