Human resource, investment climate key to reduce poverty

Investing on human resource for quality education and creating investment climate would, in the long run, help reduce poverty, according to the experts.
"The government needs to invest on agriculture as it could employ 52 per cent of the populace," said former member of National Planning Commission (NPC) Dr Pushkar Bajracharya, at an 'interaction with Eminent Personalities' organised by the Poverty Alleviation Fund (PAF) here today.
The government has to concentrate on expanding irrigation facility that has covered only 26 per cent of the arable land at present and agri-road for the access to market, he said, adding that without the focus on irrigation and agri-road, the agriculture could not sustain in long run. "In absence of modernisation, the low output has distracted youth from agriculture."
Livelihood support programmes, along with boost to micro-enterprises will also help reduce poverty in the local level, but, according to Bajracharya, with graduation from poverty, they also have to graduate to bigger enterprises at some point of time.
"The country needs to address some four million — 1.5 million poor households, and 2.5 middle class households, who are still vulnerable — households, according to Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), he said, adding that the country has no proper plan to reduce poverty, even after four decades.
The government has failed in addressing the poverty since decades, former vice chair of the NPC Dr Pitambar Sharma said, adding that the government has been talking of poverty reduction since its first five year plan "but the situation has not seen any progress."
The PAF needs to redefine poverty, he said, adding that poverty reduction does not only mean increasing consumption, it should rather have a broader goal including social, economic and political process. "But the government failed to intervene in the process."
Whatever poverty reduction and rise in consumption the country has witnessed in last one decade is due to remittance, which could not be sustainable, said the experts in the half-day meeting organised to discuss issues and gaps relating to poverty alleviation and solicit suggestions for creating effective poverty alleviation mechanism at the national level and to identify the key constraints in poverty alleviation ranging from institutional to policy, legal to managerial.
The experts also dwelt on time period for a poor to graduate to non-poor. "The PAF must have an exit strategy," former chief secretary Dr Bimal Koirala said, adding that funding is an input not the output, and how much money has been spent on poor is not a measure, but how many of the poor graduated to non-poor with the help from PAF is key.
"The PAF could get some input from the South Asian Millennium Development Goals (SDGs) along with UN prescribed MDGs, while forming its strategy in fighting against poverty," Prof Dr Bishwhambher Pyakurel suggested.Similarly, President of Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) Suraj Vaidya stressed on developing entrepreneurship to fight the poverty.

Champions of anti-poverty campaign
KATHMANDU: A meeting of the prominent personalities organised by Poverty Alleviation Fund on Friday agreed to form of a group of eminent persons to work as champions of anti-poverty campaign in Nepal. "PAF will work on selecting the name, develop Terms of Reference and proposed the structure of the group," vice chair of the Fund Janak Raj Joshi said, adding that the proposed group will also provide regular feedbacks for improved performance of PAF and work as facilitators while dealing with other stakeholders.