They do things different in other places. But they also do many things the same. Nepalese policy advocate Basanta Adhikari joins the Overton Window podcast to talk about how he got into advocacy and how his organization, Bikalpa-an Alternative, is changing minds and policy in his country. Many of the problems and tools for policy success ought to be familiar.

“We’re trying to find the small issues and work on them,” Basanta says.

The group has had success in motorbike licensing. Four wheelers are expensive, so people have to rely on two wheelers. Motorbikes are a financially accessible form of transportation in Nepal. Getting a license, on the other hand, is difficult.

“One has to wait one to three years to get an appointment to get a license,” Basanta says. At the appointment, applicants take a written exam and pass a trial. Few are successful getting licenses through official means. Most turn to black market middlemen who obtain licenses for a fee. The poorer people who don’t pay wind up without a license.

“Every time they are confronted by the traffic police, they are harassed or fined. If they have an accident they have to go to jail,” Basanta says. “We decided that this was a problem, and we decided to speak up about this.”

Basanta and his colleagues wrote articles, shot videos — one of which got more than three million views — held stakeholder dialogs, and ran a protest campaign.

They won. The national Department of Transport added more offices to issue licenses and the waiting period dropped to a few days. “We’re not going to take the whole credit,” Basanta says. “But we were the ones to raise our voice on this issue and bring it into the limelight. If enough people care and become vocal, policymakers respond.”

Bikalpa-an Alternative also works on bigger-picture values, trying to foster an interest in what free markets can do to improve the situation in the country.

“In a year we reach around 2,000 young people,” Basanta says. “We bring in young people and educate them on these values.”

He got involved in policy during the country’s constitution-making process. Its political parties demanded their issues be put in the constitution and staged protests. This caused a lot of downsides for normal Nepalese, Basanta says.

“You could not operate your business. You could not go to school or college because everything is closed down. You could not bring your vehicle in the street—someone would vandalize it,” Basanta says.

He got involved in a campaign that promoted free enterprise, rule of law and security in life and property. “I started taking a stand,” Basanta says.

“Before that, I was more into leftist values. I say I was sympathetic to Marxian values — Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, Karl Marx and Stalin — these people were my role models,” Basanta says.

Nepal has gone through a lot of important political changes. It ended its monarchial government and adopted a nonreligious constitution. The country fought a civil war in the process.

The constitution requires the country to be socialist. “Because of that, many policymakers think of distributing wealth. They think about giving welfare and handouts. But they’re not thinking in terms of generating wealth so that you have wealth to redistribute,” Basanta says.

“Over 750,000 people leave the country each year as migrant workers.” Basanta says. “Many of those people are going to come back to Nepal and are contributing a lot to our economy. But now there are young students who don’t want to come back to the country. They want to go to America, Canada. Around 120,000 young students leave the country, and they’re not going to go back.”

Basanta notes that Nepal has many advantages, including good water resources and a strong Buddhist heritage as the birthplace of Buddha. “We do have a lot of potential. We have a lot of possibilities. We are one of the best tourist destinations in the word. We have 8 of the 10 highest peaks in the world,” he says.

Yet political instability holds the country back.

“In the last 35 years we have changed our government 30 times,” Basanta says. “When there is not political stability, there is not policy stability. And when there is not policy stability, no nation can prosper. Policy is everything. If you have good policies, you can make a nation prosperous. If you don’t have a good policies then you cannot do anything. You’re just locked.”

Basanta is trying to open things up by moving onto another problem that affects his neighbors, electronic rickshaw regulation. Towns often had human-powered rickshaws, but newer electronic versions are hitting the market.

“It was helpful to customers. It was creating jobs,” Basanta says. “It was family-friendly. But local government authorities came up with the idea to put a quota of three hundred of them on the streets at a time when there were already a thousand on the market.”

The licensing test also eliminates poorer and illiterate people from contention, regardless of their ability to drive safely.

Bikalpa-an Alternative is waging a new reform campaign based on its proven method of writing, holding stakeholder sessions, getting the media involved, and engaging with local officials. Basanta hopes the group will have continued success in bringing economic liberty to Nepal.

Check out the conversation at the Overton Window podcast.

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