Agricultural Entrepreneurship among Female-headed Remittance Receiving Households in Nepal

2022 Fiscal Year Research-status Report

• Project/Area Number: 17K17917
• Research Institution: Hiroshima University
• Principal Investigator: PIYA LUNI 広島大学, 人間社会科学研究科(国), 研究員 (60761377)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: Entrepreneurship / Migration / Remittance / Current Migrants / Non-Migrants / Return Migrants / Peri-urban Nepal / Trivariate Probit

Outline of Annual Research Achievements

Results dissemination seminars were held in Nepal at the district and ward levels. Government officials, local stakeholders, community representatives, media personnel, academicians and development workers were invited to the seminars. The major objectives of the seminars were to directly communicate the policy-relevant findings of the research to the policy-makers and the community. The participants appreciated the seminars as such direct policy dialogues between academic researchers and policy-makers are rarely organized.
A paper titled 'Entrepreneurship among remittance-receiving households in peri-urban Nepal' was presented at the 33rd Annual Conference of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies (JASAS).
Journal article with the same title is in the process of publication.

Current Status of Research Progress

2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.

Reason

Over the last year, COVID-related mobility restrictions relatively decreased. Thus the necessary field-data that had been pending could be finally received. That facilitated the data analysis process. Findings from preliminary data analysis were presented at dissemination seminars in Nepal and JASAS conference in Japan. Incorporating the feedback from the participants, a journal article has been prepared and is being processed for publication.

Strategy for Future Research Activity

Most of the project activities has already been conducted as planned. More than 97% of the project budget has thus been utilized. A journal publication is in the pipeline as the final lap of this research project. The remaining budget will be utilized for the same purpose.

Causes of Carryover

As per the original plan, the project was supposed to end in the 2021. The budget for the last academic year, i.e. 2020-2021 was allocated for dissemination of research results, mainly through presentations. Unfortunately, that was the same year when the COVID pandemic happened. As a result, travel to conferences was not possible for the past two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, we had a domestic conference presentation in Kyoto and international symposium in Hawaii, both of which was later converted to online platform due to the pandemic. Similarly, in 2021 we were supposed give a conference presentation in India, which was again held online for the same reasons. In 2022, the travel restrictions eased a bit, and we were able to update our field-data that was necessary for data analysis. The remaining budget will be used in this academic year for result dissemination purposes, namely processing publication charges for journal articles and conference presentations, as per the feasibility.