Nepal on track to achieving MDGs: report
Nepal is on track to achieve the millennium development goals (MDGs) set for 2015. A recent World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) report said Nepal was among the low-income countries on the way to reaching the targets.
The WB assessment supports the report on MDG prepared by the National Planning Commission in September 2010 which had also shown significant progress in most of the MDGs.
There are eight goals and 21 quantifiable targets which are measured by 60 indicators under the MDGs. The eight goals are eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability and developing global partnership for development.
However, “Global Monitoring Report: Improving the Odds of Achieving the MDGs” prepared by these two global organizations stated that Nepal would not be able to halve poverty and hunger by 2015.
According to the WB, Nepal is 90 percent close to achieving the goal of universal primary education and reducing maternal mortality.
Nepal is also on track to achieve the target of gender parity in primary and secondary education as well as the target of bringing down under-five child mortality.
“The main reason behind the substantial progress in achieving the MDGs is multiple actors including the state and non-government organisations working to help achieve these goals,” said Jagadish Chandra Pokharel, former vice-chairman of the National Planning Commission (NPC). Among the 21 targets, Nepal has already met three targets—halving the proportion of people below the minimum diet level, child mortality under five years and access to safe drinking water, according to MDG Report 2010 prepared by the NPC. Nepal had received an international award from the US government for reducing the child mortality rate last year.
Another former vice-chairman of the NPC Mohan Man Sainju finds three factors responsible for Nepal’s achievement. “First, continuation of the Panchayat-era basic needs approach which focused on health and education; second, community-based grassroots-level programmes in the health sector; and third, donor support.”
Despite these achievements, Pokharel said that there was wide disparity in progress in terms of geography and ethnicity. “People of the Mid-Western and Far Western regions and some communities in the Tarai are under-achievers,” he said. The WB and IMF report has lauded Nepal for giving sufficient attention to indigenous people saying that a majority of countries have not given proper attention in their MDG reports.
However, the question is whether Nepal can sustain the achievements made so far. “Better economic growth and employment creation are necessary to sustain the achievements in the MDGs,” said Pokharel.
Donors have invested significantly in the social sector over the last one decade with their support soaring to 67.94 percent in the fiscal year 2008-09 from 32.57 percent in 2001-02, according to the MDG report.
With most of the MDGs being related to the social sector, Sainju said donor support remained crucial to achieve the goals.
While investing heavily in the social sector, aid is shrinking in other areas including agriculture, infrastructure and trade and industry, according to the MDG report of Nepal. Of late, there has been growing concern over the increasing interest of donors in the social sector and dwindling interest in the infrastructure sector. The MDG progress report said, “The share of foreign aid for the infrastructure sector has declined over the period, and such neglect of infrastructure may create risks of lopsided social sector development and unsustainability in the long term.”
Sainju said it was necessary to invest in infrastructure to improve service delivery.
Posted on: 2011-04-19 09:48
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