Summit next door and Nepal’s silence

This article is authored by Brabim Karki, columnist and commentator, Nepal.

On the day a dozen of world leaders gathered at Bharat Mandapam, less than 500 miles from Kathmandu, Nepal’s ministry of foreign affairs held its regular press briefing. It was focused on Prime Minister (PM) Balendra Shah’s upcoming trip to New York for the UN General Assembly later this month. It said nothing about the delegation’s plans for the BRICS summit unfolding in New Delhi. That silence, tells what has gone wrong with Nepal’s foreign policy this week.

Balendra Shah (AFP)

The 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi, is not a routine diplomatic gathering that a small Himalayan State can ignore. BRICS is a grouping of major emerging markets and developing countries. The group began with Brazil, Russia, India and China, then added South Africa in 2010. It has now expanded to include 11 countries. Currently, BRICS accounts for roughly 49% of the world’s population and about 40% of the world’s gross domestic product. It represents a large share of its energy, resources and economic output. The summit focuses on strengthening cooperation in food and energy security, disaster resilience, health, and supply chains.

It is hosted by India under its 2026 chairmanship amid the global economic challenges, fragmented political environment, US-Israel war on Iran and Russia’s war on Ukraine.

According to reports in the Indian media, New Delhi had been preparing to invite neighbouring countries as outreach participants. There were speculations that Nepal, alongside Bangladesh would receive formal invitations, with external affairs minister S Jaishankar slated to travel to Kathmandu to deliver the invitation. However, as the summit got underway in New Delhi, Nepal’s anticipated engagement was nowhere to be seen.

For decades, Nepal’s foreign policy has been anchored by a persistent anxiety: How a small, landlocked nation sandwiched between India and China can avoid being swallowed by the orbits of its giant neighbours. Yet, the expansion of BRICS offers a rare structural opening. By bringing New Delhi and Beijing into the same room to forge shared positions on trade, technology, and global governance, the forum transforms what is traditionally a treacherous arena for the Himalayan nation into a collaborative diplomatic platform. An invitation to the summit offered Kathmandu a dual advantage--deepening its integration with the rising Global South while reinforcing the delicate, balanced posture Nepali statecraft has long aspired to maintain.

The New Development Bank, or BRICS Bank, has positioned itself as an alternative development finance institution, scaling up local-currency lending in a direct bid to dismantle the global monopoly of the dollar. For Nepal, where infrastructure projects like highways, hydropower plants, and transmission lines remain starved of capital, the bank represents a crucial financial lifeline. One might object that Nepal is not a BRICS member and has no immediate claim on NDB financing. But outreach status is how such relationships begin, and Nepal has just been handed that opening without having to lobby for it.

The debate over de-dollarisation has taken centre stage within BRICS, as member states move to settle trade in local currencies to shield themselves from dollar-denominated financial shocks. By building new architecture for intra-group trade, the bloc is trying to bypass western-dominated financial systems.

For a country like Nepal which is heavily dependent on remittances and is highly sensitive to global currency shocks, these shifts directly impact the country’s economic stability.

The human-caused global warming has been increasing faster, turning the threat of glacial lake outburst floods into an immediate danger for local communities. Nepal accounts for roughly 0.1% of global greenhouse gas emissions. But it is absorbing outsized damage despite contributing very little to global carbon emissions. The floods struck on August 26, when a mass of water, mud and ice broke loose near the Nepal-China border and swept through villages, people and infrastructure. Many people were killed and still thousands are missing. BRICS has stepped up to frame climate finance as a core priority for the Global South, distinct from the slow-moving frameworks negotiated in Paris or Glasgow. As Nepal is not in the room, it misses a chance to shape what that framing means for a mountain state.

None of this requires Nepal to break with Washington, or bow to Beijing and Moscow. It asks only that someone notice a door had opened on the country’s own border.

(The views expressed are personal)

This article is authored by Brabim Karki, columnist and commentator, Nepal.