Going down memory lane, right back to my undergrad days, I remember aspiring to become a development practitioner. Today, thanks to a decent education, I’ve reached a respectable position professionally. However, I consider myself lucky because, according to research, unemployment among university graduates in Nepal is more than three times higher than that of youth without schooling, whose unemployment rate stands at 8.2 percent. This is unnerving. Even more alarming is that 1500 people of the youth age range, which is 16-40 years in Nepal , fly off to foreign countries each day for employment opportunities.

Points to ponder upon

In Nepal, the youth constitute 41% of the total population, but Labor Force Participation among them is only 47.7%. Unemployment among youth is very high at 19.2% compared to the national unemployment rate of 2.7%. This is continually increasing. In 2017, the youth unemployment rate was 2.04% whereas in 2018 it was 2.14% (ILO, 2019). Despite these numbers, there are various provisions from the government, whose narratives are very promising towards youth employability and entrepreneurship development. There is a government-owned strategy of the National Youth Council, Government of Nepal called Youth Vision 2025, which has five focus areas, among which one is Youth Employment and Entrepreneurship. This is just one example. However, a lot of effort is still needed to bring the narratives of these strategies into implementation.

Becoming an entrepreneur is not easy. Eeda Rijal, CEO of Sochware, stresses on an easy documentation process to promote new startups. “It should apply right from the registration process to mentorship to finding the right investment, and so on,” says Rijal.

Moreover, bringing in innovative ideas into entrepreneurship is a painstakingly long process. “It took me more than a year to explain to the concerned authorities the benefit of using drones for social good,” says Raj Bikram Maharjan, Founder of Airlift Technology.

A glimmer of hope

Having worked in youth economic empowerment programmes for four years, I am familiar with the challenges of bringing like-minded people and concerned ecosystem actors together into a common platform to prioritize on youth entrepreneurship. However, I was a strong supporter of the idea of a government-owned entity that could foster a youth entrepreneurship ecosystem in Nepal. In 2019, a ray of hope lightened the Accelerator Lab team when we met officials from the City Planning Commission (CPC) of Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC), who had a vision of a one-stop facility for youth entrepreneurs called Kathmandu Business Hub (K-Hub).

Then, a milestone achieved!

Through rigorous consultations between UNDP Nepal Country Office/Accelerator Lab and the CPC/KMC, we were able to attain a formal partnership between the KMC and UNDP in December 2019. This partnership was not only between these two entities, but also the first ever partnership of UNDP with the local government after the arrival of the federal structure in the country. Based in Kathmandu, K-Hub is envisioned to become a platform that provides an enabling eco-system for start-ups and young minds to accelerate their ideas and skills on business and entrepreneurship in order to create jobs in the market. As one of our portfolios of experiments, together with CPC/KMC, we are experimenting this concept in an existing infrastructure facility where government officials will guide aspiring young entrepreneurs, provide mentorship, support incubation and accelerator programmes, and more. All of this will be governed, coordinated and owned by the government.

Young entrepreneurs have reacted positively to this initiative and see tremendous possibilities in the country for entrepreneurship.

 “I felt glad when I heard about the concept of K-Hub. It indeed shows the commitment of the government in working for youth entrepreneurship,” says Bonita Sharma, Founder of Sochai. In the same vein, Biplove Singh, CEO of AeroRoots, recalling his difficult entrepreneurial journey, talked about his appreciation for K-Hub. “I left my stable job to become an entrepreneur. It was a tough initially, but now, we have been able to secure partnerships with the local government and different private sectors, and I am looking forward to engaging with K-Hub,” he says.

A lot of time, investment, prioritization and joint intelligence is needed to create entrepreneurs and decent jobs for young people.

UNDP Accelerator Lab in Nepal is working closely with development partners, the private sectors and grassroot innovators as a “vehicle” to test innovative solutions around unplanned urbanization and unemployment, It is on a quest of to invest technical expertise on these two frontier issues in order to map, and explore a portfolio of experiments to foresee more possibilities.