By Rick M 
Nepal is set to become the global hub of the discussion on social welfare because of the international conference on resilient and inclusive social protection. The conference that has taken place in Kathmandu has assembled participants including scholars, practitioners, and policy makers to look for ways of improving social protection floor and building human capital among the needy groups.
The conference is especially timely for Nepal at this time when the country is trying to strengthen its social policies and where issues of poverty and inequality remain a constant concern. This has been evident in the discussions held during the event where issues pertaining to sustainable development in economic planning were given much attention especially with regard to poverty eradication and building capacity within the community.
Some of the areas under discussion are new directions in social protection, the use of technologies for welfare provision, and ways of ensuring that social protection systems are effective in addressing risks including disasters and economic downturns. Participants are also looking for ways of how the social protection programs will be able to support these groups of people including women, children, elderly and physically challenged.
The opening session speech of Minister of Finance of Nepal stressed on the continued efforts of the country towards enhancing social protection system. He mentioned some of the recent measures such as extension of health insurance and introduction of unemployment benefits as measures towards the expansion of the social security system.
Nepal has been commended by the international experts during the conference and at the same time they have been able to hear the experiences of other countries and the practices that they have employed. Experts from the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme have stressed the need to make policy decisions based on available data and to assess the effectiveness of social protection measures more often.
The conference has also discussed the issues of funding social protection, especially in the context of the developing countries such as Nepal. Some of the topics have involved the search for new sources of funding such as the public-private partnership and the role of international development finance for social protection programmes.
This conference comes at the right time as Nepalese government and relevant institutions look forward to strengthen social policies in the country. The ideas and partnerships to be developed from this event are expected to define the future policy directions of social protection in Nepal in the next few years with implications for millions of vulnerable people.