The administrative system and civil service are weak. The 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines jet out of Kathmandu illustrates the ineffectiveness of basic security measures. Corruption is rampant, and funds allocated for the development of interior areas may never reach their destination. These vulnerabilities are magnified by Nepal's poverty and its traditional isolation. Nepal's population, a mosaic of different tribes, language groups, and religions, was secluded in the mountains for centuries.
Many people live in remote villages that can only be reached by several days' walk.
Many villages are totally ignored by economic planners, without schools, roads, electricity, or medical facilities. At the national level, the number of unemployed people who have some education is increasing rapidly. Close to 100,000 rural youths failing high school examinations every year have neither a job nor a school to go to where they could be kept busy. There is little domestic capital to invest, and foreign investment is not coming in. Average economic growth, approximately 4 percent per year for the past five years, is insufficient to absorb the estimated 500,000 young people who join the labor force each year.