Lalitpur, Jan. 31:A five-day international conference kicked off here today with a view to formulate development strategies that would help alleviate poverty in the South Asian mountain regions through the sustainable use and management of natural resources.

The development challenges in the hills and mountains are enormous, Foreign Minister Dr. Ram Sharan Mahat said addressing the inaugural session of the conference on Growth, Poverty Alleviation and Sustainable Management in the Mountain Areas of South Asia here this morning.

“How to bring about a change in the lives of already hard-pressed mountain people is the most difficult development and environmental question before us today.”

Despite efforts from the governments and non-governmental sector, the magnitude of poverty remains very high in South Asian mountains. It is because the efforts to eradicate poverty have mostly been characterised by limited and ad hoc initiatives, Mahat said.

Mahat said that there was “too much experimentation without commitment in the name of poverty” and stressed on the need to address the issues of management, governance transparency, accountability and participation.

Mahat said that Nepalese government had developed a two-pronged strategy: the first sought to integrate the poor into the mainstream of the economy through higher productivity and expanded employment opportunities and the second envisaged a set of integrated programmes combined with social mobilisation of ultra poor households.

Dr. Mohan Man Sainju called for the need to recognise the intrinsic capacity of the people in the mountain areas to harness the available development opportunities and improve their quality of life as well as to preserve the basic interests of the future generation.

What is now really called for sustainable and integrated development of the mountainous regions is indeed the regional co-operation of scientists and experts from all nations, German Ambassador Dr. K. Barth said.

Showing concern over the continued outflow of physical and human resources from mountains to plains, Director General of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), Egbert Pelink said that the great challenge ahead was to identify opportunities how mountain areas could benefit from market-centred development and not lose out in the processes of commercialisation and globalisation.

The conference organised jointly by ICIMOD and the German Foundation for International Development (DSE) and participated in by over 80 experts and professionals from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, China and Germany aims at identifying appropriate strategies and agendas for sustainable use and management of natural resources in the fragile eco-systems of the mountain areas.