Kathmandu, June 30: Micro-enterprise Development Programme (MEDEP) seems to be very effective for generating income and employment opportunities for the poor people living in the rural areas of Nepal and help reduce poverty which is the main objective of the Ninth Five Year Plan.

According to official statistics more than 40 per cent of the total population of Nepal live under the poverty line while estimate based on one dollar per day per person income put the figure at more than fifty per cent.

Poverty is found in every part of Nepal but it is specially very serious in rural areas, hills, among the lower castes and ethnic minorities. In spite of efforts from the government since the early fifties to reduce poverty, no development plan has been successful in achieving that goal due to many reasons specially the lack of people’s participation during the thirty years of the Panchayat System.

After the restoration of democracy in 1990, government has given top most priority to alleviate poverty. The past experience shows that the goal of poverty alleviation cannot be achieved without the participation of people.

With a view to achieving the goal of poverty reduction in the Ninth Five Year Plan, Micro Enterprise Development Programme has been launched in 10 districts including Baitadi, Dhanusha, Nawalparasi, Nuwakot, Parvat, Sunsari, Tehrathum, Dang, Pyuthan and Dadeldhura with the joint support of His Majesty’s Government and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The main target of the programme is the poorest of the poor whose average per capita income is around Rs. 7,000 and poverty reduction of low income families and capacity building of service delivery mechanisms are the twin goals of the programme which can be achieved through the development of sustainable micro-enterprises.

The programme not only provides loans to the poor families to start small scale enterprises but also helps to select the programme, enhance the capacity of the participants by providing training and imparting skills to the people.

Poverty reduction is not possible only by distributing capital and other resources to the low income people. It needs to enhance their capacity in overall development aspects. Any development model based on the involvement of the local people in all the processes of the development can be sustainable because they have the investment in the programme. Most of the development activities failed as these works lacked the involvement of the people in the development initiatives.

What MEDEP intends to do is the empowerment of the local people and their participation through saving organisations and start micro enterprises.

According to the programme, participating families or groups take decisions themselves in relation to the micro-enterprise, they follow the policies of the open market and no subsidies are provided.

The programme intends to include 70 per cent women and 30 per cent men as its beneficiaries, help promote the employment opportunities at the local level, build up local level capacity for planning, implementation and cooperation to sustain micro-enterprise development and undertake training and gender equality orientation programmes for MEDEP personnel, partners and potential micro-entrepreneurs.

Keeping in view the multidimensional effects, poverty should not be based only on monetary measures because poverty is not about income alone but it is multidimensional. Though the target to reduce poverty at the world summit for social development held in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1995 was based on monetary measures but most of the countries and development practitioners believe that it is necessary to incorporate explicit human poverty targets such as reducing malnutrition, expanding literacy and increasing life expectancy- into poverty programmes.

Ganesh K. Gurung of Micro-enterprise Development Programme Parbat district says the programme is very effective in alleviating poverty as it is based on the skills and interests of the participants and only locally available resources are utilised.

The basis of the success of the programme is the people’s participation, strong partnership of His Majesty’s Government, Federation of Nepalese Chamber of Commerce and Industries and other organisations, says Mr. Gurung.

Ram Darshan Nepali of Manigram, Nawalparasi district says, or after starting the micro enterprise, I have been able to earn my livelihood, I have admitted my four children in the local boarding school and I think I have got a new life with this programme.

We have many things to do, but we had no ideas of it, now my eyes are open and I can start any business and live independently, he says.

It is said that the programme helps to reduce poverty and it will utlimately help to increase the literacy rate, living standard of the people, increase health status which certainly help in the human resource development of Nepal.

Narahari Bhusal of Wahaki Village Development Committee of Parbat district says he can’t even imagine how successful he was in producing pickle which has a huge market in the neighboring villages. We can make anything from our local resources and earn money to support our family, he says. Being a porter, I used to earn around Rs. 3000 but now I earn more than that and I think I will start a big business with other friends, he adds.

The programme has also helped people to be organised so that they can have access to the public servicesprovided by the government.

People are encouraged by the success of this programme, which needs to be expanded to other areas of the country specially in the Mid Western Development Region, and it will be very helpful to achieve the goal of poverty alleviation of ninth plan which intends to reduce the people living under the poverty line to around 32 per cent.

In the words of Mark Malloch Brown, administrator of the UNDP, “an organised policy environment at the national level had been the missing element for putting in place anti-poverty strategies that would ensure social equity and lead to poverty reduction and that is what the new UNDP is about — helping countries put in place the policy environment and the institutions to ensure governance for human development or governance for poverty reduction” needs to be thought very seriously to achieve the goal of poverty reduction.