BY A STAFF REPORTER

Kathmandu, Dec.10: Governments of different countries can reduce poverty if they share their respective experiences, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba said in an interaction programme here today.

The Prime Minister said so in connection with Uganda’s poverty-reducing success stories narrated by visiting Governor of Bank of Uganda at the interaction programme “Financial and Expenditure Management Progress: Challenges and Experiences” at the National Planning Commission this morning. “The Ugandan progress can be a lesson for us.”

Dr. Emmanuel Tumusiime, the Governor of Bank of Uganda, said that the governments battling poverty should prioritise their problems. “Don’t live beyond your means” he said, adding, “poverty means your needs.” During his narration, Tumusiime also cited few examples of how privatisation foreign aid had worked in Uganda.

The interaction was a curtain raiser to a follow-up workshop on Financial and Expenditure Management Progress: Challenges and Experiences.

“This process also deals with the mid-term budget the government is considering to introduce,” said Dr. Shankar Sharma, a member of the National Planning Commission. Sharma was recently on a study tour to Uganda.

The African nation, he pointed out in a write-up that came out in a monthly magazine recently, has been able to bring down its poverty level to 35 per cent from 56 per cent in the last one decade.

Uganda’s per capita income is 1000 US Dollars more than that of Nepal while both the nations are land-locked. “Like in Nepal, 80 per cent of the population in Uganda has to rely on agriculture.”

The dramatic improvement in Uganda’s financial sector has become a source of deep analysis for donor communities and developing countries, he said. Uganda’s Gross Domestic Product jumped to 7.1 per cent in 1999 from 3.4 per cent in 1991.

Together with other improving economic indicators, foreign investment in Uganda reached 230 million US Dollars in 1999 from only two million US Dollars in 1995.

A paper by Dr. Sharma distributed during the interaction read that Nepal’s public expenditure management has suffered from a number of problems in the past ten years. “Export growth and tourism infrastructure development, so far have remained satisfactory.”

Public resource management is the most vital element for poverty alleviation, he said. “Experiences of other countries have shown that countries with improved public resource management could help to get relatively quick results to build development momentum in the short term and increase economic growth.”

According to Dr. Sharma, a concrete framework for poverty reduction strategy is being formulated in order to develop clear, focussed, and prioritised poverty reduction strategy. “Medium term budget framework is being prepared to develop the spending plan in line with agreed sector and priorities. This will also help in increasing allocation and ensuring adequate funding in prioritised areas.”