In a significant step towards strengthening regional ties, Pakistan and Nepal have committed to intensifying their collaborative efforts on gender development, women’s empowerment, and building climate resilience. The agreement emerged during a visit by a high-level delegation of Nepali women parliamentarians to the Institute of Regional Studies (IRS) on Tuesday.
IRS President Ambassador Jauhar Saleem welcomed the delegation, emphasizing the long-standing cordial relationship between the two nations and stressing the need to channel this friendship into concrete, multi-sectoral cooperation. He specifically championed gender development and climate change as cornerstone areas for partnership, alongside educational and cultural exchanges.
In a concrete proposal to advance women’s empowerment, Amb. Saleem suggested that 50% of the existing scholarships for Nepali students in Pakistan be reserved specifically for women.
Leading the delegation, Ms Nagina Yadav of the Nepali Congress Party provided an overview of Nepal’s progress on gender development and expressed a strong desire for actionable collaboration with Pakistan, acknowledging the success of Pakistani initiatives in this field.
Delegation members, including Ms Puja Chaudhary (Janata Samajbadi Party Nepal), Ms Sarita Bhusal (Communist Party of Nepal), and Dalit rights activist Ms Gaura Nepali, highlighted the potential to leverage the strong bilateral relationship. They proposed establishing focused working groups on business, education, culture, and climate, as well as fostering direct people-to-people exchanges.
Representatives from the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES), which supported the delegation, identified climate change as a critical and promising area for joint action, given both countries’ vulnerability to its effects. Felix Kolbitz (FES Pakistan) and Ms Natalia Figge (FES Nepal) reinforced their organization’s commitment to facilitating such regional cooperation to advance human security and gender equality.
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The interactive session concluded with a productive question-and-answer segment, generating several constructive proposals for future Pakistan-Nepal collaboration.