Kathmandu, June 8 : The Danish Association for International Cooperation (MS Nepal) organised a national workshop here today to assess Nepal’s efforts towards the implementation of commitments made by it at the World Summit on Social Development held in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1995 and identify the challenges encountered in the implementation process.

The workshop was also aimed at gathering inputs from different individuals and organisations working in social development sector and prepare a paper for presentation in similar forum in Copenhagen during the last week of this month and then in an NGO forum in Geneva, Switzerland where the UN Special Session on Social Summit is taking place in July to review the achievements made and constraints faced in social development sector following the 1995 Social Summit.

Professor of Sociology at Tribhuvan University Dr. Chaitanya Mishra presented a working paper on “Nepal: Five Years following the Social Summit” at the workshop which brought together some 30 representatives from government and non-government sectors.

With special focus on efforts being made towards poverty alleviation, employment promotion and social integration as per the commitment Nepal had made at the Copenhagen social summit, the paper also assessed other issues intrinsically tied to social development— mobilisation and utilisation of resources for social development, capacity to implement social policies and programmes, domestic and international factors impeding social development, and proposal further initiatives.

Some sectors like education (in terms of enrollment) and, maternity and child health care (in terms of reduced mortality rate), have seen some improvement but despite being an overriding objective of the Ninth Plan poverty reduction still remains a far cry, Dr Mishra said, adding the agenda of poverty reduction has hardly entered into public, political domain.

As for employment promotion, government policies and strategies in this regard show a severe lack of commitment, he observed, adding that the bulk of work force, including the unemployed and the underemployed, remains unincorporated within government policies and strategies despite some programmes announced by the government towards this end.

He also shed light on the efforts being made towards social integration, mobilisation and utilisation of resources for social development, domestic and international factors inhibiting social development, and on various impediments to social development.

All the participants took active part in the discussion on the working paper and provided their inputs for incorporation in the paper before presenting it in social summit fora in Denmark and Geneva.

Earlier, resident representative of Ms Nepal Eigil Rasmussen had made a brief presentation on the solidarity activities taking place in Denmark, MS Nepal’s participation in these activities and the importance of solidarity in improving the conditions of women, children, the downtrodden and the exploited masses.

The social summit and solidarity 2000 programmes provides a unique opportunity to NGOs and individuals in the north and the south to get together and make sure that important issues such as development aid, human rights and gender equality are put on the agenda.

More than once civil society has shown that it has the power to influence the international, national and local agendas, he said, noting that civil society can contribute to putting words into commitments and commitments into action.