Nepal needs Rs 451.4 billion to achieve MDG targets

Nepal needs Rs 451.4 billion — from 2011 to 2015 — to achieve Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), according to a report launched here today.
'Millennium Development Goals: Needs Assessment for Nepal 2010' launched jointly by the National Planning Commission and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) pointed out that during the period 2011 and 2015, a total of Rs 1,395.8 billion is required to achieve the targets. Of the total, there is a gap of Rs 451.4 billion, a 32.34 per cent of total needs.
The country has not yet decided how the resource gap is going to be managed.
However, Nepal is likely to achieve most of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) targets set for 2015, the report said, adding, however, reducing the proportion of the population below a minimum level of dietary energy consumption, proportion of underweight children aged 6-59 months, proportion of stunted children aged 6-59 months, survival rate to grade five, literacy rate for 15-24 years old, proportion of skill birth attendants, universal access to reproductive health and proportion of population using an improved sanitation facility will be difficult to achieve, said
The report has also stressed some strategic intervention to achieve the targets.
"The planning commission is strengthening the monitoring and evaluation mechanisms to monitor MDG related outcomes," vice chair of the national think tank Dr Dinesh Chandra Devkota said, adding that the government will fully take ownership and leadership of development strategies.
The government plans to adopt forward-looking macroeconomic policies that promote sustainable development and lead to sustained, employment-centric, inclusive and equitable, broad-based economic growth, he added.
The report has also recommended programme implementing partners to focus on small holder farmers, food security, employment centric interventions, nutrition, reproductive health, economic empowerment, and universal primary education particularly for hard to reach group of children, women and the communities.
In the context of shifting global priorities towards fighting global recession and climate change implications, the government has to make greater efforts to manage resources for meeting the MDG targets by the year 2015 despite the resource gap. "Nepal will have to show higher development aid effectiveness to attract global funds," according to the report.
UNDP resident representative Robert Piper, on the occasion, said that the preliminary results of the third National Living Standard Survey suggested that Nepal has significantly improved in many areas including average household income and per capita income. "The achievement is nothing short of extraordinary given the country’s post-conflict status and country’s difficult political and economic environment,” he said, adding that the progress in the indicators at national, aggregated level is impressive, as always, but the country should not lose sight of what lies beneath. "We are yet to see if the significant rise in average household income has also led to reduction in inequality," he added.
The MDG Needs Assessment for Nepal is a joint initiative by the planning commission and UNDP to estimate the resources needed and identify gaps for achieving Nepal’s MDG targets within the next five years.