The month of September is a momentous month for Nepal. Nepal celebrates its Constitution Day on September 19. Nepal promulgated its present Constitution on September 19, 2015. Regarded as one of the most progressive constitutions in the world, the legal document preserves the fundamental rights of its citizens, including youth, ethnic minorities, sexual minorities, people with disabilities and those belonging to lower socioeconomic groups. Article 42 of the Constitution guarantees their right to social justice. The Gen Z Revolution that Nepal witnessed on September 8, 2025, was a moment when Nepali youth exercised their political rights and freedoms of opinion, expression and protest, as well as their right to peaceful assembly, free movement and association, as guaranteed by Article 17 of the Constitution. While the revolution sadly claimed the innocent lives of some Nepali youth, it fundamentally reshaped the political landscape of Nepal in which we find ourselves today.
There has been a surge in youth interest, involvement and leadership in the politics of various countries across the globe. From Nepal’s Gen Z Revolution and Bangladesh’s Youth Revolution to India’s Youth Movement of the Cockroach Janata Party, much of this mobilization has centered around protests against incumbent governments tainted with accusations of persistent corruption and demands for better governance. The youth mobilization seen in recent years has been swift and efficient. The increase in youth participation and engagement in politics has surely been fueled by the rapid spread of digital and social media. This has led to the democratization of online civic spaces, helping galvanize the youth by reducing traditional barriers to having a meaningful voice in politics, which was traditionally dominated by policy wonks, seasoned bureaucrats and established political authorities.
There are several irrefutable benefits of youth participation in politics, such as (1) the introduction of policy innovation on the ground; (2) a challenge to the languid bureaucracy and status quo politics, with a push for speed and efficiency in the delivery of public services; and (3) the development and expansion of civil and political rights and liberties among the population, leading to the deepening of democratic values. While it has historically been true that youth have been at the center of many political revolutions that the world has seen, such as the French Revolution, the American Revolution and the People’s Revolution in Nepal, until recently there had not been a comprehensive study, report or index measuring the level of youth participation in politics.
The latest attempt to measure youth political participation across countries in a meaningful way has been carried out by the Global Youth Participation Report, published in 2025 by the University of Birmingham, UK. This report defines youth as individuals between 15 and 30 years of age. It assesses the level of youth political participation using four major indicators or dimensions: (1) socioeconomic dimensions, (2) civic space dimensions, (3) political affairs dimensions and (4) election dimensions.
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The socioeconomic dimension examines the level of education, skills and training that the youth of a country possess to participate meaningfully in the country’s politics, as well as any barriers they face while trying to participate in the economy. The civic space dimension focuses on the extent to which the youth of a nation can mobilize politically on the ground and on social media and exercise their freedom of peaceful assembly, protest and participation in government. The political affairs dimension investigates the level of youth participation in the three organs of government, mainly the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. Finally, the election dimension highlights the level of freedom youth have when it comes to casting their votes in an election and running for office themselves. The lower the score in any of the four dimensions, the lower the global youth participation index of the country.
The indicators in the index were created to reflect the core values of equity, fairness and inclusion. With a score of 59, Nepal ranks 82nd on the index. This may not be an entirely fair ranking for Nepal, as between September 8, 2025, and now, Nepal has made rapid strides in expanding youth participation in mainstream politics, including with the election of Balen Shah as the youngest prime minister of Nepal at the age of 35. Accounting for this change, Nepal would climb a few rungs in the rankings. The top three countries in the index are Norway, New Zealand and Germany, with scores of 84, 84 and 81, respectively.
While Nepal has made great strides in securing the political rights of its citizens and youth, much remains to be done when it comes to securing the economic rights of its citizens. The Global Youth Participation Index also acknowledges that youth empowerment through education, skills and training is necessary before they can meaningfully participate in and contribute to the politics of a state. There is a clear lack of economic policies and incentives on the ground to create youth employment and job opportunities.
According to data released by the country’s National Statistics Office, the youth unemployment rate hovers at around 12.5 percent. While this is official data, the actual number may be higher, given the fact that, on average, around 800,000 citizens leave the country to work abroad annually. With annual remittance flows into Nepal surpassing the country’s entire annual budget for fiscal year 2025/26, Nepal has much work to do.
With annual remittances reaching NRs 2.36 trillion ($16.19 billion), compared to the national budget of NRs 1.964 trillion—a difference of around NRs 0.4 trillion—for the same fiscal year, remittances now represent almost 26 percent of Nepal’s GDP. This explains why Nepali citizens are forced to leave the country in search of economic opportunities, as the country has failed to make sufficient public or private investments that could create jobs domestically.
This leaves Nepal and Nepali citizens working abroad, especially in the Middle East, highly vulnerable to external threats and wars, as the Middle East is known to be a highly volatile region. According to data from the Foreign Employment Board, 1,438 Nepalis died while working or living abroad between June 2025 and June 2026. These are indeed grim figures. This means that the very safety of Nepali workers is not fully secured when they leave home to work abroad in search of a better life for themselves and their families.
Some may have gone abroad to make more money so that they could pay the medical bills of sick family members; others may have gone to save money to educate their children, only to end up dead. This is a heartbreaking reality for many Nepali families today.
Given that the current government is youth-led and came to power with a promise to deliver better governance for the Nepali people, it needs to introduce bold policies on public and private investment to ensure that the Nepali economy can meet the economic aspirations of the youth and its citizens. It cannot be comfortable with the bleak reality that many Nepalis end up dead on the job far away from home after leaving the safety of their homes with the desire to work hard and create a better life for themselves and their families.
The current government needs to address instances of bad governance, work to strengthen public and private investment to create jobs and economic growth for its citizens, strengthen weak internal and external state capacity and presence, including the rule of law, and promote civic dialogue between youth and established political institutions.
As we celebrate another year of the promulgation of the Constitution, we need to move beyond political rights and focus more on guaranteeing the economic rights of the citizens of Nepal, as enshrined in Article 33 of the Constitution of Nepal. It has been just six months since the current government assumed power, and it would be too early to judge its performance in such a short period. The country is hopeful that the policies introduced and implemented by the current government will produce much better outcomes than those we saw under previous governments.
The author is a former Inspector General of Nepal Police.
