Serving the Underserved - Providing Relief to the Displaced Workers in Nepal During the COVID-19 Crisis

Jul 19, 2026

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Serving the Underserved analyzes how COVID-19 and Nepal’s lockdowns affected the domestic labor market, with evidence drawn from the 2017/18 Nepal Labor Force Survey and the 2018 National Economic Census. It finds that income relief measures aimed mainly at formal firms in advanced economies will have limited effects on displaced workers’ livelihoods in Nepal. Policy should instead broaden social assistance coverage and add temporary measures for underserved groups, supported by near real-time labor market monitoring and core registries to target relief where needed.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages7

Reading Time18 min

COVID-19 impacts on labor markets

Limits of existing relief and social assistance coverage

Need for monitoring and registries

COVID-19 and lockdown in Nepal

Nationwide lockdown timeline and mobility changes

Government measures for mitigation

Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized COVID-19 RESPONSE NOTE SERIES • Poverty & Equity GP • NEPAL COUNTRY OFFICE SERVING THE UNDERSERVED: PROVIDING RELIEF TO THE DISPLACED WORKERS IN NEPAL DURING THE COVID-19 CRISIS * Hiroki Uematsu, Saurav Katwal and Liza Maharjan This note discusses the impacts ofCOVID-19 and lockdowns on Nepal’s domestic labor market, using data from the 2017/18 Nepal Labor Force Survey (NLFS) and the 2018 National Economic Census (NEC) .1 Income relief measures targeted for formal sector firms widely practiced in advanced economies will have limited impacts on saving livelihoods of displaced workers in Nepal. Policy responses should focus on expanding the coverage of social assistance programs or other temporary measures to those who are underserved by the existing programs. These policy interventions need to be accompanied by long-term efforts to set up near real-time monitoring of labor market conditions and establish and maintain core registries of people and businesses so that the government can monitor labor market conditions and deliver relief measures when and where necessary.2 The COVID-19 outbreak has become the worst global pandemic in the last 100 years. The pandemic caused more than 37 million infections and more than one million deaths worldwide as of the time of writing (John Hopkins University 2020) . More than 80 percent of the countries worldwide have imposed social distancing measures to limit people's movement and the spread of the viral infection (University of Oxford 2020) . The global economy is plunging into the biggest crisis since the Great Depression and 90 percent of countries are projected to experience negative economic growth in 2020 (Loayza 2020) . Global poverty, as measured by the international poverty line, is projected to increase for the first time in 20 years (Mahler et al. 2020) . The COVID-19 pandemic brought about devastating shocks to labor markets globally with significant declines in trade volume, overall labor demand, and remittance inflow to developing countries (Loayza, 2020b). Close to half of the global labor workforce have lost or will lose their livelihoods due to the continued decline in working hours (United Nations 2020) . International remittances inflow is projected to decline by 20 percent globally, 22 percent in South Asia (World Bank 2020d), and as much as 43 percent between March and May 2020 in Nepal compared to the previous year (World Bank 2020b) . This crisis is particularly challenging as virtually all countries in the world are affected simultaneously and it strips countries of the many coping mechanisms that are usually available in the case of country-or region-specific crises such as natural disasters. In many developing countries, the available policy options to provide immediate relief is limited. First, labor * This note is a product of the Poverty & Equity Global Practice of the World Bank Group, with financial support from the Evidence for Development Programme of UK Department for International Development (DFID) . 1 Both NLFS and NEC are conducted by the Central Bureau of Statistics. For this note, we use NEC data aggregated at the level of local governments, available at [https://cbs.gov.np/economic-census/](https://cbs.gov.np/economic-census/) 2 All figures are available for download and customization at [https://bit.ly/covid19JIT_servingtheunderserved](https://bit.ly/covid19JIT_servingtheunderserved) Figure 1. Google Community Reports markets in developing countries are characterized by large informal sectors where workers are not eligible for unemployment insurance or redundancy payments. Second, coverage of existing social assistance programs is often limited. Third, developing countries tend to have limited fiscal space to provide immediate relief. The welfare impacts of the pandemic and lockdowns are likely significantly higher in developing countries due to their limited abil

FAQs

为什么面向正式部门企业的收入救助对尼泊尔流离失所工人的帮助有限？

该类措施在尼泊尔的实际覆盖范围通常不足。尼泊尔劳动力市场以大型非正规部门为特征，许多工人不符合失业保险或冗余补偿资格。

报告建议怎样改进对被现有项目覆盖不足群体的救助？

建议扩大社会救助项目的覆盖范围，并为现有项目无法触达的群体提供其他临时性措施。

为了在必要时“在正确地点、对正确对象”提供救助，报告强调了哪些能力建设？

报告主张建立近实时的劳动力市场监测机制，并建立和维护人群与企业的核心登记体系，使政府能够持续掌握劳动力市场状况并及时投放救助。

Jul 19, 2026

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