High disparity still exists: NHDR

January 30, 2002
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January 30, 2002

Kathmandu: Despite Nepal’s development efforts, wide social and geographic disparities persist, said the Nepal Human Development Report (NHDR) – 2001, made public here today. It added the lack of good governance made poverty reduction strategies more difficult.

The NHDR-2001, published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), stated that even with an annual growth rate of five per cent and significant improvements in life expectancy and education over the last decade, two out of five Nepalese continue to live in abject poverty.

The report, sub-titled “Poverty Reduction and Good Governance”, showed striking geographic and social variations in the development scenario and underlined the intricate relationship between poverty alleviation and good governance.

The new report stated that most of the country’s growth over the 15 years took place outside the agricultural sector, the main source of livelihood for 80 per cent of the Nepalese. It also highlighted the persistent problem of caste and gender discrimination, along with the marginalisation of a number of ethnic groups.

Meanwhile, the report argued that poverty perpetuated because of inequality and inequity in the distribution of resources and opportunities.

The vast disparities in the ownership of productive assets– both capital and non-political — correlate closely with a lack of broad policy “ownership” and the participation of most citizens in allocating public resources.

In addition, the absence of transparency and accountability resulted in misuse and waste of the public resources, diminishing the impact of poverty reduction efforts, the report stated.

The report said that non-participation, opaque decision making processes, and sharp shortcomings in accountability added up to weak governance.

Poverty reduction through good governance has of late been the focus of Nepal’s human development programmes, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba said while formally launching the report.

The government, to achieve its objectives, has equally been determined to make its machinery more efficient to take governance closer to the people through further decentralisation, Prime Minister Deuba said.

“It is in the area of poverty reduction through good governance that Nepal has been focussing its development programmes, especially in the recent past,” Prime Minister Deuba added.

The Prime Minister said that an efficient management of public and private resources was essential for the people in making “appropriate choices about their lives if they have access to proper education, health and other necessities.”

The government has recognised the fact that there is a strong relationship among human development, poverty alleviation and good governance. “Without good governance neither can we realise human development nor can we eradicate poverty.”

That is why human development assumes such a pivotal place in Nepal’s development agenda and the government will continue to follow the human development paradigm aggressively in the future in its drive to reduce poverty, Deuba added.

The goal of poverty reduction would be more focussed in the upcoming 10th Plan in terms of defining and reaching target groups and enhancing their capabilities.

Deuba also said that to ensure that the poor had equal opportunities, “our institutions have to be effective, fair and responsive to the people’s need.”

Prime Minister Deuba, however, acknowledged that Nepal’s development continued to remain uneven. The development efforts in rural areas have yielded less than that in towns and cities while the mountain belt is far behind the hills and the Terai belt, and Mid-Western and Far-Western regions are lagging behind other development regions in all development indicators, he said.

Deuba further noted that the task of reducing inequalities was not that easy but the government was determined and open to introduce more reform measures aimed at growth and equality.

“The eight-point programme announced by the government is indicative of its determination to reduce the continuing socio-economic inequalities in the country,” Deuba said.

He said that despite making significant improvements in human development in the last 12 years of democracy, a large segment of the population continues to suffer from low expectancy, low literacy and poor living condition.

However, the Prime Minister said, the government was facing great challenges in delivering public goods and services and managing public resources. Moreover, the government’s efforts to meet these challenges had also been hampered by Maoist-unleashed terrors.

Despite the government’s sincere efforts to find a peaceful solution, the security forces had to be mobilised as the Maoists unilaterally broke the peace talks, forcing the government to divert more resources to meet security needs, he added.

At the function, National Assembly Chairman Dr. Mohammad Mohsin said that the NDHR-2001 gave ample opportunities to the people to introspect whether the national experts were successful in their attempts to meet the challenges of the nation and aspirations of the people.

It threw light on the endeavors in bringing majority of the marginalised people into the mainstream of development process and spoke about the participation and accountability of the policy and decision-makers, he said.

The UNDP Resident Representative, Dr. Henning Karcher, said that the NHDR-2001 was prepared after having long consultations with Nepalese and foreign experts.

Dr. Karcher said that the report advocated for human development in Nepal by pointing out issues of national interests.

The report also presented measures to ensure development and participation of the marginalised and deprived people, Karcher said.

National Planning Commission Member Dr. Shankar Sharma said that although the country’s human development indicators improved in the past ten years, we still lag behind in comparison with other nations.

Stating that there was uneven improvement in the indicators in the past, Sharma said that Mid-Western and Far-Western regions saw indicators 20% below the desired level of improvement while the indicators in cities and towns were down by 25% of their desired level of improvement.

The report highlights the unequal regional development in Nepal. It states that the poverty ratio in Mid and Far Western development regions along with gender discrimination is increasing.

While other parts of the country recorded 15 per cent improvement in Human Development Index during 1996-2000, these two regions witnessed deterioration of human development in the same period. The Mid-Western region recorded just 1.3 per cent increase in the index.

During the same period, the central hills region had eight per cent increase while the hills of eastern area of the nation recorded 15 per cent of improvement. Likewise, the rural areas showed eight per cent increase while the urban areas indicated 16.1 per cent growth in the human development.

The NHDR-2001 has been published for the second time by the UNDP, which had published its first Nepal Human Development Report back in 1996.