Kathmandu: “After the restoration of multiparty system in Nepal in 1990, people’s hope to see a new kind of relation between the center and the remote areas failed due basically to the malfunctioning of the political parties”, said Finance Minster Dr. Prakash Chandra Lohani.
He was speaking on the occasion of the SAARC-UNDP High Level Forum on Poverty Alleviation, a two day meet jointly sponsored by the SAARC-UNDP. The politics became just as an extension of business, it became as a tool to make money, said Lohani.
Political parties.jpg (71436 bytes)
Thus it acted as a damper between the state and the people, Dr. Lohani lamented.
Mr. QAMA Rahim, the SAARC Secretary-General said “the recently concluded 12th SAARC Summit at Islamabad made various achievements and said the summit was a historic one in its entire history of inception of about 18 years”. He lauded the adoption of SAFTA and the SAARC-social charter which according to Ambassador Rahim were some of the tangible achievements made during the summit.
These were the initial steps made forward for achieving the targets set for poverty reduction, concluded Ambassador Rahim.
Dr Hafiz Pasha,the visiting UN Assistant Secretary General and Regional Director for Asia-Pacific bureau of the UNDP confidently hoped that “ SA could achieve the goals faster, by 2010, instead by 2015”.
Commenting further, Pasha, a Pakistani national, said the huge natural and human resources in SA if exploited properly by all member states working in tandem could achieve the goals together.
Foreign Secretary Mr. Madhu Raman Acharya speaking on the occasion said “ Landlocked Countries like Nepal should be given more emphasis by the global community in her fight against poverty”.