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This article examines how COVID-19 has impacted Nepalese migrants' vulnerability and the actions they have taken to adapt to the situation. It investigates the problems created by COVID-19 from a disaster-risk management approach, the preparatory measures taken to deal with the disaster, and efforts by state and non-state actors in migrants' rescue, relief, and reintegration into society. Marginal migrants, including unskilled workers, women, undocumented individuals, have been most affected by the pandemic, something which was also overlooked by government policies. The study shows that because government subsidies for migrants were too meagre and came too late, migrants have started going back abroad, despite COVID-19 risks. Furthermore, the study reveals that Nepalese migrants' vulnerability depends on their levels of education, skills, gender, and legal status. In the light of these findings, the Nepal government needs a stronger institutional structure to help migrants navigate transnational spaces. (Crit Asian Stud/GIGA)

This paper demonstrates that a new crisis has emerged in the Himalayas in recent years, as five decades of well-intentioned policy responses failed to tackle escalating environment and development challenges. It then suggests some practical pathways for achieving what we term transformative resilience in the region. Our analysis draws on a critical review of literature, combined with individual co-authors' longstanding experience in the region in both research and policy arenas. We highlight how the neo-Malthusian Theory of Himalayan Degradation continues to shape simplistic responses to environment and development problems of a multi-faceted nature, in the vulnerable, complex and politicized contexts of the Himalayas. A key reason for this failure is an obsession with technical reasoning underpinned by the dominance of biophysical analyses of the problems, which have, in most cases, undermined the potential for emancipatory political transformations. The failure is visible in various ways: poverty remains, while environmental vulnerabilities have increased. Foreign aid has often been counter-productive and 'blue-print' development planning has been fragmented and dysfunctional. Likewise, livelihood opportunities and social capital have seriously eroded due to unprecedented political crises, out-migration, abandonment of productive mountain lands and unregulated remittance economies. We term this phenomenon a 'new Himalayan crisis'. In response, we argue for the need to open up a transformative agenda for integrating approaches to environment and development challenges, emphasizing an emancipatory multi-scalar politics that has the potential to open up sustainable pathways in the context of dynamic social and ecological changes in the Himalayas.