Nepal Infrastructure 
KATHMANDU: In an effort to develop skilled human resources for increasing trade capacity with better preparation for Nepal’s graduation from the Least Developed Country (LDC) status, the European Union supported developing Tribhuvan University (TU) professors as experts in international market intelligence.
The European Union (EU) -funded Trade and Investment Programme (TIP) organized a five-day Training of Trainers (ToT) workshop in Kathmandu with technical support from the International Trade Centre (ITC) targeting professors of economics.
The workshop which concluded 2nd December on Friday was aimed at spreading the knowledge of market intelligence through participating professors in their workplaces in their different capacities including as teachers, researchers and advisors in the coming days. The workshop was conducted as Nepal is in the process of graduating from LDC when it needs skilled human resources to support the country’s international trade capacity building.
The goal of the workshop is to set up an active network of certified trainers on ITC tools who can afterwards train their students, apply knowledge in research activities and provide trade-related advisory support to the Government authorities in Nepal.
During the workshop, ITC trainers performed individual assessments allowing each participant to instruct future trainees on the application of the ITC’s Trade Map and Market Access Map and evaluate the performance of the TOT participants based on their technical knowledge, navigation proficiency, and training skills, among others. The ITC successfully conducted the introductory workshop on ITC’s Market Analysis Tools to selected participants representing TU’s Central Department of Economics (TU-CEDECON) in November 2021.
Participants termed the training opportunity to learn using modern tools to have greater access to international trade information. Resham Thapa, Associate Professor of the Central Department of Economics of Tribhuvan University, who successfully completed the ToT training, said that the workshop was a great platform to learn practical basis about Trade Map, Market Access Map, and Export Potential Map which are key tools to enhance market intelligence.
“This training is going to support developing TU as a resources centre for trade-related information and multiplying knowledge of ITC market intelligence tools in various platforms by the participants,” said Thapa. The training was focused on data collection skills, and identifying potential glitches and problems while using the ITC tools. In addition to providing market intelligence tools, trainers provided tips for better presentation skills which are necessary for successful trainers.
Junu Sinjali Magar, another participant, said the workshop is timely to build sustainable capacities in Trade and market intelligence, and trade-related policy research, as there is a dearth of such expertise among the academia in Nepal. I thank EU and ITC for this needed support provided to us through this training.”
About the EU-Nepal Trade and Investment Programme
This four-year programme funded by the European Union and launched in February 2020, assists the Government of Nepal in achieving sustainable and inclusive economic growth and poverty reduction by increasing trade and participation in regional and global value chains.
Implemented by the International Trade Centre, the project also provides assistance to the sustainable and inclusive development of Nepal’s coffee and pashmina value chain, with a focus on export development.
