Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) Debapriya Bhattacharya on Monday said India and China have to look at ‘face to face and eye to eye’ if the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) initiative has to succeed.
"And Nepal is placed very strategically in between India and China to carry on that dialogue. I hope that will happen in the future," he said.
Debapriya, a prominent economist and former Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations, made the remarks while responding to a question during a high-level panel discussion titled ‘Impacts of Climate Change, Disaster Risks and the Role of Parliamentarians’ on the sidelines of the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) Parliamentarians’ Meet-2025, which began at a hotel in the capital city of Nepal.
"You see, we are talking about a policy issue which cannot be successful without being a cross-border one. It's a regional issue in that way," he said.
Debapriya said the eight countries - Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan - they are talking about - have different types of relationship amongst them at this very moment.
Each of these countries stands at a different level in their democratic and developmental transition, he observed.
"But the fact of the matter is that within these eight countries, the elephant in the room is India and China and nobody is talking about that," Debapriya said, adding, “Now they are beating around the bush.”
So, the economist thinks, if they have any political capital to invest, then they should be investing over there and engage with them and make them understand as well that the individual approaches for their respective country will not succeed if the regional approach or collective approach, the new polycentricism is not taken up over there.
"I will hope and pray that in the future when public representatives will engage, they will engage with those public representative bodies in China and India much more forcefully than others who are already converted to it in many ways,” he said.
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A Bangladesh delegation led by Chattogram Hill Tracts (CHT) Affairs Adviser Supradip Chakma, is attending the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) Parliamentarians’ Meet-2025.
BNP Standing Committee Member and former Minister Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury spoke at a separate high-level panel discussion titled ‘Parliamentarians' Role in Balancing Biodiversity Conversation and Human Wellbeing in the HKH Region’.
Senior Joint Member Secretary of National Citizen Party Dr Tasnim Jara and its Joint Member Secretary Mir Arshadul Hoque are among the members of the Bangladesh delegation.
Nepal’s President Ramchandra Paudel attended the meet as the chief guest, while Speaker Devraj Ghimire attended it as a special guest.
CHT Affairs Adviser Supradip Chakma, International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) Director General Pema Gyamtsho and representatives from other participating countries also spoke at the inaugural session.
The inaugural session was followed by various technical sessions.
The event is exploring common understandings, dialogues and coordination among the parliamentarians of the nations in the Hindu Kush Himalaya region.
The Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) sustains nearly one-fourth of humanity — providing water, food and livelihoods for 240 million people in the mountains and 1.65 billion downstream.
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But the region, experts say, faces urgent and interconnected threats from climate change, biodiversity loss, disasters, and air pollution.
The Federal Parliament of Nepal is hosting the Hindu Kush Himalaya Parliamentarians' Meet, the largest-ever assembly of legislators from across the region.
This landmark event offers policymakers a platform to deliberate on shared challenges and advance collective, trans-boundary solutions for a more resilient future.
Supported by the United Kingdom International Development (UKID) through its Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) the HKH parliamentarians’ Meet 2025 aims to provide an effective platform for members of the parliaments from the HKH countries to come together, access the latest knowledge and information about the HKH region’s issues, challenges and opportunities, share experiences about the best parliamentary practices, and discuss forward-looking policy actions.
The Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region is increasingly facing severe impacts of climate change, disaster risks, biodiversity loss, and pollution alongside accelerated socio-economic shifts with serious implications to ecosystems, natural resources, livelihoods and human life.
Given the significant role of parliamentarians in policymaking, legislation, and shaping public opinion, parliamentarians from the HKH countries can be crucial in advancing the region’s climate action and resilience agenda, organisers said.
They, however, need access to essential knowledge and evidence to proactively advance gender equal and social inclusive, pro-planet, pro-mountain and pro-climate advocacy at the national, regional, and global forums.
Despite sharing various environmental and socio-economic challenges, the HKH parliamentarians lack a regional platform to discuss their shared challenges and opportunities and identify solutions to address them collectively, said the organisers.