In an increasingly globalized and interconnected world, where social and environmental change occur ever more rapidly, careful futures-oriented thinking becomes crucial for effective decision making. Foresight activities, including scenario development, quantitative modeling, and scenario-guided design of policies and programs, play a key role in exploring options to address socioeconomic and environmental challenges across many sectors and decision-making levels. We take stock of recent methodological developments in scenario and foresight exercises, seek to provide greater clarity on the many diverse approaches employed, and examine their use by decision makers in different fields and at different geographic, administrative, and temporal scales. Experience shows the importance of clearly formulated questions, structured dialog, carefully designed scenarios, sophisticated biophysical and socioeconomic analysis, and iteration as needed to more effectively link the growing scenarios and foresight community with today's decision makers and to better address the social, economic, and environmental challenges of tomorrow.

The Hindukush Himalayan region including Nepal, a country reliant on tourism, is particularly sensitive to climate change. However, there are considerable gaps in research regarding tourism and climate change in Nepal. The present research assesses the impact of climate change on tourism in the Manaslu Conservation Area of Nepal. Seventy-six households were interviewed followed by three focus group discussions and five key informant interviews. The empirical data collected at the site are complemented by secondary information on climate and tourism. Local people perceived that temperature and rainfall have been increasing in the study site as a result of climate change. In response to gradually warming temperature and decreasing snowfall, there seems an urgent need for tourism promotional activities in the study area. This would spread the tourist base and increase foreign tourist expenditure in Nepal.

Foreign remittances have become a crucial component of the Nepalese economy. This study investigates the impact of remittances on household consumption patterns in rural Nepal using data from the World Bank’s Nepal Household Risk and Vulnerability (NHRV) Survey Panel, covering the period from 2016 to 2018. Employing an instrumental variable regression approach, we estimate the elasticity of remittances to various consumption categories. Our findings indicate that foreign remittances significantly affect total consumption expenditure. Disaggregated results reveal that remittances positively influence spending on food items and non-food categories such as education and healthcare, highlighting their role in enhancing nutrition and human capital development. However, remittances do not contribute to unproductive expenditures like tobacco, alcohol, or rituals. Therefore, other things remaining the same, remittance is enhancing welfare in rural Nepali households.