The Department of Government Efficiency, helmed by Elon Musk, cut an estimated $329 million in humanitarian aid to Nepal while gutting USAID (U.S. foreign-aid agency). Stuti Basnyet, who served as USAID Nepal’s acting program office director since 2024, said the closure caused an estimated 30,000 direct job losses and disrupted early-grade reading support across all 35 districts, teacher training, and the review and refunding of educational materials. Nepal had received steady U.S. assistance since 1951, when it became the country’s first bilateral aid donor. Basnyet later co-founded Aadyanta Advisory, which supported nearly 400 young Nepali innovators and founders in one year, as she shifted from public service to entrepreneurship. Nepal’s private sector is seeking to fill the gap through stronger domestic investment, U.S. corporate activity and technology development. The lower-middle-income country has a GDP of $1,447 and ranks 124th among 145 countries tracked by the Harvard Kennedy School Growth Lab. More than 40% of its population is between 16 and 40, while its rivers and melting glaciers support a power system that runs on 99% hydropower. Nepal has more than 100,000 megawatts of potential hydropower but has tapped about 5,000 megawatts, according to Pukar Hamal, founder and CEO of SecurityPal. The country approved nearly 7,500 foreign investment projects worth about $5.5 billion through 2025, exported about $1 billion in information technology products in 2025, and aims to reach $20 billion in annual technology exports over the next 10 years. Yet about 1,500 young people leave Nepal for foreign work each day, and agricultural jobs pay about 67% less than the national average, according to the cited data. Balen Shah, a 36-year-old former rapper elected in March after violent Gen Z-led protests, promised to create 1.2 million jobs and promote private-sector partnerships and industrial activity. More than 75 civilians died and over 2,000 were injured in the protests. The new administration’s early test came in August, when flash floods from a collapsed glacier killed 1,300 people, left more than 5,000 missing and caused estimated damage exceeding $2.56 billion. Nepal later received tens of millions of dollars in foreign aid, including more than $5 million from the U.S. State Department, while Nvidia contributed $10 million and BYD and its Nepal distributor Cimex contributed $460,000 to the Prime Minister’s Disaster Relief Fund. Basnyet said Nepal should not remain aid-dependent, but should improve public-resource use, mobilize domestic capital and draw more deliberately on business, the diaspora and philanthropy while maintaining global cooperation.