Nepal's Labour Diplomacy: Assessment Of Its Effectiveness

Abstract

The objective of this study has been to assess the Labour Diplomacy being conducted by Nepal in terms of its effectiveness. Necessity and Sufficiency of Bilateral Labour Agreements with labour destination countries, analyzing the coordination and collaboration between institutions and agencies involved in this process and performance of diplomatic missions with respect to available resources come under the purview of this study. Cases of migrant labours in relation to State of Qatar and Kuwait have been considered as field of study. Qualitative method of research has been used to collect information regarding the cases related to meet the objective of this study. Interview was conducted based on questionnaire designed to obtain necessary information related to the research. Data related to labour issues of the fiscal year 15/16, 16/17 and 17/18 has been obtained from the two missions and Department of Consular Services. To analyze the effectiveness of existing Bilateral Labour Agreements/Mous comparative study has been done with the issues of labours and the subject matter addressed by the BLA. Comprehensive Framework of Labour Agreement designed recently seems more labour friendly and can be legal document to support the day today work of diplomatic missions. Similarly, in this research work the level of coordination between different stake holders has been studied in relation to time taken to address any issues not addressed by general conditions. Level of coordination during an unprecedented case that comes into play has been analyzed to determine the level of coordination between various stakeholders and decision makers. Finally,Performance of missions has been studied comparing the number of cases addressed by the missions in each year. Performance has been related to capacity and available resources. It is found that existing BLAs have provided strong legal basis for daily activities tobe done by missions in support of labours. Coordination between agencies has been another factor contributing for smooth handling of Labour Diplomacy to large extent.Diplomatic missions would have been utilized more effectively given the resources and attention to improve their competence. Being country relying largely on remittance received from migrant labours, Labour Diplomacy could have been more effective given that government gives priority to the upgrading the BLAs with labour destination countries along with its effective implementation and developing better mechanisms that can enhance the functioning of diplomatic missions so as to meet the expectation of migrant labours.