The Nepal Pilot

Nepal is one of the world's most labour-migration-dependent economies, with a substantial share of households having a family member working abroad. It is also a country where government, employers and civil society have shown genuine appetite to make that migration safer and more developmental. This combination is why ILSI chose Nepal as its founding pilot.

Four corridors

• Nepal to the GCC states — the largest current corridor by volume, concentrated in construction, hospitality and domestic work.
• Nepal to Malaysia — significant manufacturing and services employment.
• Nepal to the Republic of Korea (EPS) — employment under Korea's government-to-government Employment Permit System.
• Nepal to the United Kingdom — a smaller but growing corridor, largely in care and hospitality sectors.

What the pilot delivers

Across these four corridors, the pilot delivers the full ILSI membership programme described in the membership programme — pre-departure checks, in-country legal protection and helpline support, and structured reintegration on return — alongside the policy and investment work described in our corridor masterplan.

Delivery partners

The pilot is delivered through a network of Nepal-based and destination-country implementation partners, working alongside Nepal's labour migration authorities and destination-country counterparts.

Governments and development-finance institutions interested in the pilot's design or early lessons can request a briefing.

Why four corridors from one origin country

Running four distinct corridors from a single origin country, rather than one corridor in four different countries, was a deliberate design choice. It lets ILSI compare how the same origin-country systems — recruitment licensing, pre-departure training, reintegration infrastructure — perform differently depending on the destination country's own labour market, regulatory environment, and sector mix. Lessons from where the Nepal to Korea EPS corridor's structured, government-to-government model performs differently from the more market-driven Nepal to GCC states corridor, for example, directly inform how ILSI designs corridor masterplans elsewhere.

Measuring what the pilot achieves

The pilot's progress is tracked through the same evidence base described in our data hub — casework patterns, verification activity, and reintegration participation — rather than through claims that are difficult to substantiate. Full findings will be published as the pilot matures through ILSI's annual reports and publications, giving governments, employers and donors a transparent basis for assessing what the pilot has actually achieved.