Bikalpa an Alternative, with the support of Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) organized three days residential Bikalpa Fellowship Camp at Hotel Namje View Point, Namje Bhedetar, from 27th-29th of August. The event was conducted to bring together the” Entrepreneurship and The Beauty of Market Workshops” participants in a shared space to provide the surplus knowledge regarding Freedom and Entrepreneurship, Trade and Doing business,
The Rule of Law, Property Rights and Principles of Public Policies. The director of Malla Enterprises, Mr. Abhinayak Malla, Advocate Mr. Rupesh Koirala, and Mr. Aakash Shrestha from Samriddhi foundation were invited as resource persons for the training. Altogether 24 enthusiastic youth from diversified fields attended the program. During the three zestful days, participants engaged themselves in lectures, presentations, debates, and both formal and informal discussions.
On the first day, all the participants, organizers, and resource persons proceeded towards the training destination. After three hours of travel, participants reached the destination and had tea and snacks. Followed by that, Mr.Suman Rai led the first session of the event with a welcome note and introduction within the participants, organizers, and resource persons. After welcoming the participants, he shared the logistic information and ground rules setting.
Following this, Mr. Basanta Adhikari made participants do a short recap of their major takeaway and learnings from the one-day workshop. The session ended by dividing the participants into four groups and assigning each group with a presentation on the hassles of doing business in Nepal. The groups dealt with four sectors: – Hospitality Sector, Trading Sector, Manufacturing Sector, Education Sector, and were asked to present their findings related to their topic on the following day.
The second day began with a short recap of the activities carried out on the previous day, which boosted to correlate the session to the last day and proceed further. Followed by this, each group presented their assignment in a seven-minute pitch time, and additional two minutes were provided to answer the queries of other participants. After the completion of the presentation, Mr. Abhinayak Malla and Mr. Gokul Karki bestowed their feedbacks and opinion regarding the group work.
They set forth insights into entrepreneurship and their perception of the challenges of doing business in Nepalese society. Mr. Abhinayak Malla, during his speech, illustrated several cases studies and his own story about the entrepreneurial journey. He opined that business is not easy as it looks on the presentation paper; one should go through numerous tests and trials and discern what works. He said that pricing is important, but it’s the quality that ensures customers stay loyal to your product in the long term.
After that, Mr. Rupesh Koirala facilitated the session on the Rule of Law and Property Rights. He stated that the term the rule of law is frequently evoked but never defined. He talked about the precept of the famous philosopher Aristotle “Government should be by law, not by man.” During his presentation, he discussed the eight pillars of the rule of law: Supremacy of law, Equality before the law, Distribution of justice, Equality among equals, Accountability to the law, Fairness in the application of the law, Separation of power, Participation & Decision Making, Legal Certainty.
He correlated the eight pillars with the Constitution of Nepal. Likewise, he also shared that the fundamental principle regarding property is where there is an owner. Property rights are related to the liberty of a person. He mentioned that the Constitution of Nepal speaks about property rights which states that every person has the right to acquire, own, sell, dispose of, acquire business profit from, and otherwise deal with the property.
Mr. Sarwagya Raj Pandey facilitated the next session on Doing Business in Nepal. During his training hour, he presented the several hassles an entrepreneur faces while commencing business in Nepal. He shared that business registration takes 15-20 days, and there are numerous issues like vague documentation, excessive bureaucracy, high fees, centrally regulated offices, and complicated regulatory offices. He said electricity is still hampered by NEA (Nepal Electricity Authority) ‘s from power cuts, bureaucratic hurdles. Nepal has high taxation and low tax compliance, and contract enforcement suffers from judicial delays and bad governance.
He also shed light upon the entrepreneurship ecosystem. The entrepreneurship ecosystem comprises Research & Association, Support Organization (accelerator, incubator), Human Resources, and Private Player. At the end of his session, he expressed that policy should be broadly focused, and the government should prioritize entrepreneurship.
The next session of the day focused on Why Incentive matters? And What Motivates People? The session was moderated by Mr. Basanta Adhikari. He provided several examples that illustrated why people do things they do and how incentive plays a vital role in human action and the market. He showed the differences between greed and self-interest. Greed is the excessive desire to gain something by causing harm to others, while self-interest is gaining something by producing good outcomes without harming others.
The final session of the second day was a movie discussion in which three short films: “i-TSHIRT: The story of a T-shirt (related to Economic Freedom and Invisible hand), Bartaman (related to the obstacles of doing business in Nepal), Tejobadh (related to Individual Freedom) were screened to help participants comprehend the policy issues. After each movie screening, the participants opined their understanding of the movies, and the facilitator of the session, Mr. Punam Giri, clarified the issues the movies want to put forward.
The third day commenced with a short recap of the activities carried out on the previous day, which boosted to correlate the session to the last day and proceed further. After that, Mr. Basanta Adhikari led the session on Social Contract Theory and Political Systems. He remarked that a social contract is an agreement between people and the sovereign on how they will be ruled. He introduced the participants to the political philosophies of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. He also shared that Hobbes was a proponent of Absolutism, a system that placed the state’s power in the hands of a single individual, and Locke advocated a more open approach to state-building.
He focused on four elements of the social contract: Human nature, State of Nature, Social Contract, and Sovereignty. He also highlighted the types of political economy. The types include Socialism (which states that production is collectively owned by the society and redistribute the end result), Communism (property is owned by the community, and each person contribute and receives according to their ability and needs), Capitalism (trade and industries controlled by private owners for profit rather than the state).
The next session was Colloquium which emphasized a Socratic discussion format where the participants first went through a particular portion of the article and engaged in holistic discussion on the subject matter. The readings included topics “Ethical and Economic Benefits of Freedom “ and “ Free Enterprises And Open Trade.” The session was moderated by Mr. Riwaj Dahal, which involved holistic discourse on designated topics.
Followed by that, participants were segregated into three groups to conduct a debate on “Who should be responsible for delivering the public goods? The area selected for the debate were education, health, fuel/gas, and electricity. The three teams, Government, Community, and Private, proffered their views on how their respective sector can handle public delivery more efficiently than the opponent sectors.
The final session of the event was on Seven Principles of Sound Public Policies, which was virtually facilitated by Mr. Aakash Shrestha. He discussed the seven principles with relevant examples of Nepal. He highlighted that the Government policies should acknowledge long-run and short-run effects and should consider the long-term consequences of the policy to ensure sustainability.
The event summed up with the distribution of certificates. All the participants ended with a note that they had a good experience and an excellent Network. The participants and the organizing team returned to Biratnagar after having tea and snacks on the 30th of August.
