Twelve months is not a long time in most countries. In Nepal, it has been enough for two national traumas and, curiously, a fresh argument for optimism.
A year ago the launch of author and analyst Sujeev Shakya's book 'Nepal 2043' was postponed after deadly unrest on 8-9 September left the country mourning and government institutions literally smouldering. Almost to the day, on 26 August, disaster struck again: catastrophic flooding in the Trisuli River valley, dubbed a 'Himalayan Tsunami', killed hundreds, damaged the towns and hydropower tunnels of Nuwakot and Rasuwa districts, and wrecked a corridor that matters for energy, trade and tourism. Some 200,000 people have been directly affected, and the economic toll ripples well beyond the valley.
Shakya's revised edition, with a new chapter reflecting the flood, launched this month at events hosted by Casa Asia in Paris and the Nepali Embassy in Madrid — where the audience was largely young Nepali students abroad. His core thesis holds four megatrends: climate change, geopolitics, migration and technology. The flood, he argues, doesn't overturn that framework so much as accelerate it. Nepal's disasters are no longer anomalies; they are becoming the baseline, and the scale of events is shifting faster than anyone planned for.
There are numbers worth knowing on the other side of the ledger. Nepal holds roughly $25 billion in foreign exchange reserves, and annual remittances have climbed to about $15 billion — a cushion many larger economies would envy. A new RSP government that took office in March has had its crisis management tested almost immediately, and early handling of the flood response has been cautiously praised, with security forces working around the clock on rescues rather than the confrontations that marked the previous administration. Shakya also wants Nepal to lead on climate advocacy at the upcoming COP31 summit in Antalya, and suggests international universities should open research centres in the country — which is, grimly, one of the world's best natural classrooms for studying mountain climate impacts.
Why should a traveller care? If Nepal is on your list, the practical picture is more stable than headlines suggest: the economy is resilient, and the day-to-day country — the cafés, home kitchens and a visibly more hands-on civic culture that Shakya describes — is very much functioning. But the Trisuli route is a reminder that Himalayan infrastructure is vulnerable, so build flexibility into any overland itineraries and take weather warnings seriously, especially in monsoon season. Travellers with an interest in climate and sustainability will also find Nepal an increasingly serious destination for research-driven visits and trekking routes where the effects of a warming Himalaya are visible in real time.
Shakya admits to being 'obsessively optimistic'. After a year like Nepal's, that optimism is less naivety and more a survival strategy — and, for visitors, a reason to keep the country firmly on the map.
Reported by Nepali Times.
