Nepal : What does a youngest Republic need ?

Recently Nepal has made a huge transition from a monarchy to democratic republic, which many believe is a necessary prerequisite for the progress of the country and for the wellbeing of the people. The world’s youngest republic, however, inherited the lowest level of literacy, the poorest population, a lower level of health and life expectancy, a higher level of underdevelopment, and an institutionalized corruption.
With democracy came the freedom of speech and the democratic right of the people to make choices. To make a choice, the necessity regarding different option is now more crucial than ever. Two important questions arise regarding the generation and dissemination of information: Who is responsible generating the information? Ad, how will people get this information? Another important aspect, which I will not discuss further, is the processing of information by people while making a choice.
Information is mainly collected, generated, or disseminated by government statistical agencies and ministries, non-governmental organizations, research institutes and academics, and the media. I argue that research institutes and academics hold the main responsibility in generating unbiased and reliable information. NGOs and the media are important sources of data. Although they lack scientific rigor, the information is often very important in raising public awareness of these issues.
The media mainly uses data from other sources and turns it into news, hence, plays a very important role to inform the public as well as policy makers, especially in a democratic regime which Nepal has recently turned into. It is, therefore, vital for the institutionalization of democracy to establish a sound research culture to which all should contribute.
The government should make data easily accessible; promote independent apolitical research centers at universities as well as in the form of specialized non-academic research institutions (public or private); and involve these institutes in the entire process of data collection from planning to dissemination. I believe that there are many scientists in and outside Nepal who can lead these institutes. They should proactively come forward with innovative ideas, raise grants (national or international) and start recruiting young scientists.
The research findings, generally published in journals or as a working paper, should be re-written in simple language for dissemination to the media as well as to policy makers and politicians. Hence, the media should contribute by referring to these findings while reporting on these issues which will both motivate researchers and spread facts to the public as well as the policy makers.
I believe without doubt that investment in science should not be delayed and it is the right way forward for supporting and building a better democratic society as well as for the well-being of the people. However, the challenges for creating a conducive research environment as well as motivating scientists and researchers to get involved are not small.

Published in http://www.alumni.at/news/alumni-news Nr.75