Radhesh Pant on Overcoming Nepal's Infrastructure Deficit, Financing Options, and Thoughts on the Budget for FY 23/24

#Ep.046

Nepal's current state of infrastructure financing plays a critical role in shaping the country's development and prosperity. Adequate infrastructure is crucial for Nepal's economic growth, job creation, and overall socio-economic advancement. However, Nepal faces various challenges in securing sustainable infrastructure financing for long-term development. Limited fiscal resources, difficulty accessing affordable financing, bureaucratic hurdles, and governance issues hinder the financing process. Furthermore, political instability, weak institutional frameworks, and corruption pose additional obstacles to attracting essential foreign investment. Addressing these challenges requires comprehensive efforts to streamline bureaucratic processes, enhance governance practices, establish specialized financing mechanisms, and create a favorable investment climate.

In today’s episode of PODS by PEI, we have PEI colleague Saurab Lama’s conversation with Radhesh Pant. Building on Radhesh’s past experiences at the helm of the Investment Board of Nepal, Saurab and Radhesh explore the intricacies of project planning, financing, and implementation of various Nepali projects, and discuss the core challenges Nepal faces to ensure sustainable and effective infrastructural development. They further discuss the way forward for Nepal to improve its institutional organization, resource mobilization, and governance in the midst of the climate debate and the ongoing geopolitical contestations within the South Asia region.

Radhesh is the Senior Managing Partner at VRock and Company and also serves as chairman in various boards for Asia Network for Sustainable Agriculture and Bio resources (ANSAB), Smile Nepal, and is a founding director for South Asia Institute of Management (SAIM). He also served as the Chief Executive of the Investment Board Nepal (IBN). He holds an MBA from University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and a Bachelor of Technology in Aeronautical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), India.

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