The raging internal conflict could throw Nepal off the progress track making it difficult, if not impossible, to attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) hammered out at the international conferences and adopted by the world leaders during the United Nations Millennium Declaration in September 2000. The eight MDGs are actually the development targets related to the bread and butter issues of the people that have to be met within 2015. Even as the government seems confident to attain at least four of the goals, the escalation in conflict could derail the process. As these goals reflect the basic fundamentals of human development, the success of their achievement is in everybody’s interest. But how successful Nepal will be in attaining the targets like halving the poverty; achieving universal education; reducing child mortality by two-thirds; reducing by half the number of people without access to safe drinking water; ending gender disparities; reducing maternal mortality by three-quarters; halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and other diseases remain to be seen
By SANJAYA DHAKAL
For Harka Tamang of Kavre, talking about development targets when he is unable to even live in peace in his village seems like a tall order. Like Tamang, thousands of Nepalese living in grinding poverty and without basic services, are toiling hard in their country and abroad to make their ends meet. And at the end of the day, they are haunted by the violent conflict that is extracting the ever-increasing human cost from one of the poorest corners of the world.
Even as the escalating conflict is having negative impact on every spheres of development, the country cannot afford to slide back or even remain standstill. Dreams of millions of Nepalese like Tamang can only be fulfilled if the country sticks to the path of development.
The world leaders had agreed to free the humankind from the shackles of poverty and misery by adopting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) at the dawn of the 21st century.
In their goals, the leaders have included the most basic of human needs, in the absence of which the teeming billions are living inhuman lives across the globe, and particularly in the third world developing countries like Nepal.
The MDGs provide a glimmer of hope to people like Tamang who work as wage-laborers day in and day out but are hardly able to sustain their basic daily needs.
If things go unchanged, Nepal would be able to attain only four out of the eight MDGs within the prescribed time of 2015.
Dr. Shankar Sharma, the vice chairman of the National Planning Commission (NPC) – the apex planning body of the country – has said that Nepal would be able to attain the goals like halving poverty and hunger; achieving universal primary education; reducing by two-thirds the child mortality; and reducing by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water.
“The current data, reports and our calculations show that we would be able to attain these goals and that, too, if the situation of conflict does not go out of control,” said Dr. Sharma who is in the lead in formulating and implementing development strategies of the country.
Other MDGs including eliminating gender disparity in primary and secondary education; reducing by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio; halting and reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; as well as the goal of developing an integrated global partnership for development do not look likely to be achieved.
International development partners, too, are skeptical about Nepal’s ability to attain the MDGs – particularly due to the raging internal conflict.
To achieve the Goal number one, Nepal needs to bring down the level of poverty (with income of less than US$ 1 a day) to less than 21 percent of the total population – from the 42 percent in 1990. “We are well on our way to achieve that. The mid-term review of 2000 showed the poverty level had come down to 38 percent. The forthcoming Nepal Living Standard Survey will show a significant drop in that level,” said Dr. Sharma without elaborating how significant the drop would be. The survey report is expected to be made public within a month or two. The survey, conducted by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), has taken the expertise and help of the World Bank to record the drop in poverty level. Sources said that there could be a significant drop this time – as low as around 30 percent.
Officials have said that the poverty level is decreasing in the country not only because of international intervention but also because of increasing remittances by Nepalese working overseas. In the last seven years, the remittance has increased, on annual average, by 30 percent. More importantly, these remittances have penetrated rural areas where most of the overseas workers live. At present, around US$ 1 billion is received every year by the country in form of remittances. “Moreover the agriculture has been growing impressively at around 3.6 percent,” said Dr. Sharma.
Likewise, the government is also upbeat that it can attain the target of achieving universal primary education. At present, 82 percent of the children (between the age 6 to 10 years) go to school and only 67 percent of them complete their primary education. The government has started implementing the “Education For All by 2015” project since this year.
Reduction of child mortality by two-thirds is another goal that Nepal believes it can attain. “There has been a considerable reduction in under-5 mortality within the last three decades. From the very high rate of more than 200 per thousand live births in 1972 (and 161.6 in 1990), child mortality was reduced to 91 in 2000. This substantial reduction was, to a large extent, made possible through the control of malaria, smallpox, cholera and other highly communicable diseases,” states the Nepal government’s Progress Report on MDGs published in 2002. Nepal needs to bring down the child mortality to 54 by 2015 to attain the MDG. The periodic Immunization drives have also supported the campaign.
The goal of halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water is also on track of being met. In 1996, there were 61 percent people who had access to safe drinking water, which increased to 72 percent in 2001. It has to touch 80 percent mark by 2015.
The government of Nepal has formulated its Tenth Plan, Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) and other related development priorities by closely integrating it with the MDGs. The overriding objective of the ongoing Tenth Plan is also the poverty alleviation.
However, other goals that are not likely to be achieved, too, are critical to Nepal. For example, the prevailing gender disparity in education is halting the country’s progress in every front. At present, percentage of girls to boys in primary education (gross enrolment) is 78 (compared to 56 in 1990); in secondary education (grade 6-10) it is 71; and in higher secondary (grade 11-12) it is 65. “Given the trend, it is likely that the girls to boys gross enrolment ratio will reach somewhere close to the 90 percent mark (by 2015),” states the Progress Report.
“Attempting to achieve the MDGs without promoting gender equality will both raise the costs and decrease the likelihood of achieving the other goals,” said Bandana Rana, president of Sancharika Samuha, a leading women rights promoting organization.
Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) in Nepal is one of the highest in the world at 539 per 100,000 live births. The goal of bringing this down to 213 by 2015 is going to be an uphill task, concede officials. Most of these deaths can be prevented if they are provided timely health care facilities and proper care. But the average population per physician in Nepal is 23,038. These doctors are mostly stationed in cities. “For example, in Achham one of the remote districts in mid-western region, only two male doctors are there for a population of about 200,000, more than 50 percent of which are women. Thus, the inadequacy of services and health infrastructures for rural population remain the biggest challenge for improving maternal health by 2015,” said Rana.
Furthermore, the goal of halting and reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases is also least likely to be attained. In fact, the Progress Report states that the HIV prevalence rate among adults (15-49 years old) in Nepal would increase from 0.29 percent of total population in 2000 to 2 percent in 2015. The malaria spread, too, seems to be refusing to stop. In 2000, there were 29 incidents of malaria infection per 100,000 people.
The eighth goal related to global development integration is largely for developed countries.
“The current trend shows that the possibilities of attaining the MDGs are fifty-fifty. And this is true not only for Nepal but the whole of South Asia,” said noted economist Dr. Bishwambher Pyakuryal, president of Nepal Economic Association. Dr. Pyakuryal, who is also a member of the Independent South Asian Commission on Poverty Alleviation (ISACPA) formed by the 2004 Islamabad Summit of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), said that the heads of the governments of the South Asian region concerned with the tardy progress in the attainment of MDGs have formed the commission to come up with the strategies to achieve the development targets.
“It has been seen here that although we succeeded to achieve economic growths, we could not create assets for the poor,” said Dr. Pyakuryal.
“The MDGs are about sending our children to school, about the 24 million population of Nepal getting enough to eat, being able to avoid or cure diseases as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, taking more care of mothers and children, especially regarding safe delivery of babies and immunizations, and realizing the need of greater environment for breathing fresh air and remaining healthy,” Matthew Kahane, Resident Representative of the UNDP/Nepal, said at a recent program. “The MDGs cannot be achieved by working just from the top down or from the ground up. They require creative, coordinated and disciplined work from all directions,” he said.
The MDGs summarize the development goals agreed on at international conferences and world summits during the 1990s. At the end of the decade, world leaders distilled the key goals and targets in the Millennium Declaration on September 2000. There are eight major goals and 18 time-bound numerical targets to be achieved over a 25-year period (1990-2015).
“Nepal is in the initial phase of implementation of MDG. It was one of the first countries that produced national progress report on MDGs. So the government seems to be working in line with the MDG report. The challenge lies on the implementation of the policies and targets,” Erna Witoelar, the UN Special Ambassador for the MDGs in Asia and the Pacific had said when she visited Nepal in March this year.
As Nepal is currently embroiled in the bitter internal conflict, it faces even more challenge in attaining the MDGs. “We are preparing our second Progress Report on MDG, which will come out in 2005. That will give us clearer indication of where we stand and how likely we are to achieve the goals,” said Dr. Sharma.
Likewise, the government with the support of UNDP is also engaged in need assessment exercise to identify the interventions that will be required and financial resources that will be needed to attain the targets.
“Nepal needs to come up with clear roadmap regarding the MDGs. It needs to be clear how much additional financing it will require every year to move on the path towards the attainment of the goals by 2015 and how much of it will have to come through domestic sources and how much through external assistance. The need-assessment aims to set these things clear, as well,” said Sriram Raj Pande, the assistant Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP)/Nepal. The need-assessment will be completed by November this year, officials said.
“The conflict situation is complicating the things,” said Pande. Nobody disagrees with Pande’s assessment but everybody agrees that the conflict further underscores the urgency to attain these goals.
Since the attainment of the MDGs would be in the interest of the poor people, it will also help in the conflict management, say many.
Dr. Sharma is confident that the conflict will not hinder the development targets of Nepal. “In issues such as health and education, the disturbance is minimum. And we believe that since the goals have to be met by 2015, the internal conflict would have been resolved by then,” he said.
Since issues like grinding poverty, gender based discrimination, ethnic discrimination, high unemployment and skewed developed are connected with the conflict, the attainment of MDGs would help to bring about sustainable peace in the country and usher in an era of prosperity – a long cherished dream of every Nepalese.
And then the smile will return to the faces of people like Tamang who are desperately yearning for a life that is more than just a hard day of work that is unable to earn them money enough to fill their empty stomach let alone send their sons and daughters to good schools without having to fear for their life.