Digital policy imperatives for advancing Nepal’s digital economy

Abstract

While neighboring economies have successfully diffused modern digital technologies including information and communication technologies (ICTs) to transform a significant share of economies, Nepal is struggling at the initial planning stage of designing digital policies and adopting to digital technologies. This policy research paper puts an effort to analyze Nepal’s digital economy policies, strategies, and key practices. The author reviewed literatures, digital policies and reports, and conducted key informant interviews (KIIs) and In-depth Interviews (IdIs) with leadership, policymakers, thematic experts, and private sector stakeholders. The findings show that macroeconomic outlook and indicators are deeply interconnected to transformative digital vision and commitments of leadership, followed by executive capacities of policymakers and private stakeholders with confusions on foundational digital policies and strategies and taking investment initiatives for infrastructure development and digital integration. Engaged governments, policymakers, ICT professionals and experts are struggling to develop an integrated vision for digital economy in multi-dimensional digital ecosystems, convincing digital governance framework, crystalize macroeconomic and sectoral policies, digital actions and develop result-paths for state and non-state stakeholders. A review on governing policies for productive sector penetration strategies with a balance scorecard, enterprise architecture, legal and regulatory framework (BSE-SELF) regulatory architect, and collaborative investment strategies are key recommended actions to enhance domestic supply side reform. A sequential design of governance framework and roadmap are required for foundational interoperable digital public infrastructures (DPIs) to unlock the digitalization of sectoral platforms and develop infrastructure funding approaches to enable scaled platforms, foster export growth potentials, and ensure human capital development.