Challenges, opportunities ahead of sports minister

Nepal has a new Minister for Youth and Sports.

Perhaps this is the opportunity for the nation to come up with robust solutions to develop two areas of policy-making that have been traditionally neglected and relegated to a second-class status within the domains of decision-making. Biraj Bhakta Shrestha is the new minister and he has some daunting tasks ahead of him.

To be fair to his predecessor, Dig Bahadur Limbu, it would be interesting to assess what has been done during the previous government. Yet is it not yet a practice to review and give scores to what has been achieved. Perhaps it is also difficult to do so because rarely do governments of the day have a clear vision of goals and tasks to be achieved portfolio-wise.

Coming to the new minister, from what newspapers are saying, there is an air of optimism about Shrestha and what he could do.

Let’s not forget that he belongs to a party, the Rastriya Swatantra Party, that has considerable leverage over Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal.

The first big mission for him is to make his ministry relevant, a heavy weight within the echelons of power in Singha Durbar.

For now, it is almost a mission impossible considering the disregard that, so far, youth-related policies have been objects of.

How about starting a series of consultations with youth organizations and sports stakeholders?

This is certainly a no-brainer and I do hope that Shrestha and his team are already coming up with a bold exercise of listening to and engaging with them.

Imagine a series of meetings, quite informal in nature, in Kathmandu but outside the walls of Singha Durbar and around the nation where “open mike” sessions can unfold in an environment where participants can feel the freedom to speak their minds.

They would also feel empowered because perhaps, this time around, there is now a higher chance that their voices and concerns would also count.

Indeed, there are a lot of things that need discussing.

To start with, are the current national policies effective?

Well, we already know the answer to this question.

The key point would be finding practical, doable ways to turn them around.

Probably, commonsense would indicate that there is no time to radically change the existing plans.

Instead, there might be space to twist them and modify them a bit, in order to make such plans more effective.

Giving ownership to the stakeholders is one step to strengthen the Ministry of Youth and Sports but then, it is going to be paramount to get the buy-in of the prime minister.

This means not only more resources for it but also a special attention to the policy proposals that are going to be mapped out and then implemented.

Coming up with an ambitious but at the same time realistic action plan with achievable milestones is going to be the second most important thing for Shrestha.

Reviewing and assessing the institutional effectiveness of the bodies under the ministry should be on top of this list.

For example, how fit for the purpose are institutions like the National Youth Council or National Sport Council? What about the National Olympic Committee?

What about the motivation, strengths and constraints of the employees of these bodies? How can the staff working there provide more value for their work?

Having their concerns fully on board would give Shrestha an edge to turn around these institutions.

Within both portfolios under the purview of the ministry, youths-related and sports-related, there are certainly linkages and commonalities that have not been meaningfully exploited.

Ideally, the National Youth Council or National Sport Council should not work in silos as it is common practice now.

Instead, there should be in place an institutional cooperative framework to carry out, though through different means, the overarching goals of the ministry.

Talking about implementation, it is also essential to come up with a partnership framework with NGOs and not for profit organizations, especially in the youth sector.

There are so many promising organizations active in areas like youth leadership and climate action but funding is always a thorny issue.

The more the ministry works with them, the easier for the nation to realize ambitious goals of development.

It’s also of paramount importance to work out a strategy to empower the provinces’ work in the empowerment of youths, including through sports.

This is a tough area also because, within the Rastriya Swatantra Party, there is a certain dose of skepticism toward provinces.

At the same time, each of these two dimensions has specific subsets of areas. For example, promoting volunteerism should be a major agenda of the ministry.

Perhaps this is the right time to dust off the draft National Volunteering Policy that has been waiting for a formal endorsement by the Federal Cabinet for more than three years.

We know very well that volunteerism has been underappreciated and its value has been underestimated.

It should not be the case because civic engagement, the engine behind any volunteering activity, is an essential part of the national fabric.

The problem is that it has never been fully leveraged nor understood.

In the sports field, there is so much to be done, especially at tapping the potential of youngsters, starting from childhood.

Nepal should not only focus on boosting and developing its elite athletes even though, for obvious reasons, it is essential to recognize and acknowledge them.

Positively enough, at least for the major sports, something has been happening in this regard.

Yet it is essential, while making difficult choices and prioritizing for funding, to recognize that promoting sports at young ages is very important.

Doing so would require a cross-sectoral effort because, for example, schools and colleges do play an important role in this regard.

Think about the role of private colleges in promoting basketball.

Yet future champions should also emerge from public schools and here some collaborations with the Ministry of Education, also under Minister Shrestha’s party, could make a difference.

Then there is the vastly-neglected area of adaptive sports.

Athletes with disabilities deserve the same respect and treatment received by their able-bodied peers.

Many of them are frustrated and their potential is severely impacted by lack of action to support them.

Wheelchair table-tennis, wheelchair basketball, blind cricket and deaf football, for example, just to mention a few disciplines, have a huge scope for growth if investments are made.

Then, setting some targets will matter. How many youths of the nations would be undertaking volunteering activities?

How many of such acts would be one-off versus more long-term ones? How many interschools sports competitions should be organized?

How many medals should Nepal aim for at the next South Asia or Asian Games? What about the targets for Los Angeles 2028?

The new Minister for Youth and Sports has tons of work ahead but only a different style of work and grounded ambition can help him.

I wish Minister Shrestha best of luck.

The author is the co-founder of ENGAGE and The Good Leadership. Views are personal