Nepal is a country marked by poverty and development challenges, especially in its rural highland areas where residents are primarily engaged in subsistence-level agriculture and pastoralism made difficult by short growing seasons at high altitude. Remote from concentrated population centres, road, markets and sources of capital, the inhabited areas of Nepal's Himalayan highlands are generally characterised by a low level of commercial activity. But a few highland communities stand out in Nepal due to the widespread involvement of their members in business ventures and their relative economic success and high standards of living. This disparity in economic success among the communities is quite striking, particularly since Nepal's Himalayan highland communities share a similar environmental and cultural milieu. Over the course of the past few decades, the causes of this disparity have been the subject of some scholarly focus.
