Government and UN in Nepal review joint progress under UNSDCF to advance LDC graduation and SDGs attainment

The Government and the United Nations Country Team (UNCT) convened the annual meeting of the Joint Steering Committee of the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) 2023–2027 in Kathmandu today. The meeting was co-chaired by vice chair of the National Planning Commission (NPC) Prof Dr Shiva Raj Adhikari and UN Resident Coordinator for Nepal Hanaa Singer Hamdy.

As Nepal moves closer to its historic graduation from Least Developed Country (LDC) status, the discussions highlighted the role of the UNSDCF in supporting the government’s Smooth Transition Strategy and in accelerating progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The meeting reflected on the progress achieved in 2024. These results demonstrate the breadth of joint efforts across health, livelihoods, climate resilience and governance, showing how the Cooperation Framework is delivering concrete benefits for people across Nepal. During this period, a nationwide measles-rubella campaign immunised 6.3 million children, enabling Nepal to eliminate rubella, while expanding access to health care, education, safe water and protection services.

Together, the government and the UN also advanced inclusive growth, created more livelihood opportunities, strengthened social protection, and supported recovery and resilience in communities affected by disasters. Ambitious climate commitments, ecosystem restoration, and expanded civic participation further reinforced Nepal’s path toward irreversible LDC graduation and accelerated SDG progress.

Speaking at the occasion, the UN Resident Coordinator in Nepal Hanaa Singer Hamdy said, “Seventy years of partnership between Nepal and the United Nations this year is a testament to shared values, resilience, and progress. "Today, as Nepal prepares for its historic graduation from LDC status, our Cooperation Framework serves as the roadmap to make that graduation irreversible, resilient, and inclusive," she said, adding, "together with government leadership, development partners, and communities, we are advancing systemic change, creating jobs, strengthening social protection, tackling climate risks, and harnessing digital transformation."

The UN remains a steadfast partner to Nepal in accelerating the SDGs and ensuring a future that is inclusive, sustainable, and prosperous,  she added.

The Co-chair of the Joint Steering Committee and vice chair of the NPC Prof Dr Shiva Raj Adhikari, expressed appreciation to the UNCT for their partnership and emphasized the importance of national ownership in advancing global commitment, strengthening data and enhancing institutional capacity through technical assistance. He further highlighted that joint collaboration is required in harnessing synergies and strengthening collaboration for shared goals through holistic and interconnected approach, strong focus on inclusivity, building capacity, commitment to evidence and accountability and strong multi-agency collaboration.

Concerted efforts required to mobilise finance for sustainable development

The government, private sector, and the UN in Nepal jointly emphasised on mobilising sufficient development finance to achieve Nepal’s key development targets including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

During 'The Financing for Development Dialogue: Nepal’s Road to the Summit of the Future' organised by the United Nations Nepal (UN Nepal) in partnership with the Finance Ministry and Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI), here today the stakeholders in finance and development highlighted the requirement of additional investment to achieve sustainable development and accelerate structural transformation of the economy.

Speaking at the inauguration session, the deputy prime minister and finance minister Bishnu Prashad Poudel pointed out that in developing countries, a significant portion of revenue is spent on debt servicing, leaving little for development investment. He emphasised that Nepal is no exception and called for collaboration between the government, private sector, and development partners to mobilise resources. Poudel also stressed the importance of formulating a common position for the upcoming Summit for the Future at the UN and noted that this dialogue would contribute to that effort.

Four years after a series of global shocks – including the Covid-19 pandemic, geopolitical conflicts and economic instability – the SDG financing gap for developing countries like Nepal has ballooned to $4 trillion annually. The financing gap and accompanying debt challenges have worsened poverty and inequality, putting the world off track to meet international targets set in 2015.

The UN Resident Coordinator in Nepal Hanaa Singer-Hamdy, on the occasion, underlined that as Nepal spearheads towards graduation from its Least Developed Country (LDC) status, bold and decisive actions to strengthen economic foundations is needed by focusing on domestic reforms, advancing financial inclusion and gender equality, embracing digital transformation, and advocating for international cooperation.

Like FNCCI president Chandra Prasad Dhakal highlighted the need for efforts at all levels to mobilise investment for development, particularly in the context of declining foreign direct investment, revenue, and foreign aid. He also mentioned that the federation has been organizing special programmes to promote investment in Nepal and abroad and that a facilitation desk has been established to assist with foreign investment.

In the dialogue, participants dived deep into the most pressing issues for accelerating progress towards SDGs — financing or lack of it — at the time of rising geopolitical tension, post-pandemic weaker economic recovery, more frequent and intense climate-related crisis, existing inequalities and disparities including those related to gender and social marginalisation, and a new trade dynamic driven by protectionism and disengaged multilateralism, among others.

UN-Dhulikhel Hospital strategic collaboration to transform healthcare delivery

The United Nations in Nepal and Dhulikhel Hospital have signed a Joint Declaration of Intent to share expertise to transform healthcare delivery in Nepal and advance the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.

Acknowledging the importance of partnership with academia under the UNSDCF and SDG Partnership program, the UN Resident Coordinator's Office and four UN agencies—UNFPA, UNICEF, IOM, and WHO—have signed the Joint Declaration of Intent with Dhulikhel Hospital.

Speaking at the historic signing ceremony, the UN Resident Coordinator in Nepal Madam Hanaa Singer Hamdy said, “Achieving the SDGs in Nepal requires strong partnerships with various sectors. We are hopeful that this collaboration with Dhulikhel Hospital will yield excellent results to improve healthcare, address public health issues, and support vulnerable populations through shared expertise and collaborative efforts ultimately supporting a healthier, more resilient Nepal for all."

Through collaborative programmes, the UN and the Dhulikhel Hospital will enhance post-Covid-19 recovery and resilience and improve primary healthcare delivery by sharing best practices and addressing public health challenges like infectious diseases, maternal and child health, and non-communicable diseases.

The UN will support Dhulikhel Hospital on global health topics; engage in research projects to boost health outcomes; and conduct community outreach focused on health, nutrition, and social behavior change, particularly targeting vulnerable and hard-to-reach populations.

The Dhulikhel Hospital will provide technical expertise and share best practices to develop joint research projects.

“This partnership marks a significant milestone in Nepal’s healthcare journey. We are confident that together, we can build a healthier future for all. By combining Dhulikhel Hospital’s expertise in the medical field and research, and with the UN’s global resources and network, we are poised to make a substantial impact on the health and well-being of the Nepalese people.” Said Professor Dr. Ram Kantha Makaju Shrestha, Executive Director of Dhulikhel Hospital.

This joint UN collaboration as mandated by the UN Reform together with the Dhulikhel Hospital is expected to have a profound impact on the lives of countless Nepalese people and serve as a model for other countries in the region.

Nepal-Australia sign Water resource management cooperation agreement

Nepal and Australia today signed a five-year memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Cooperation in Water Resource Management.

The MoU has been signed during the second bilateral consultation mechanism (BCM) between the Australia Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and the Government of Nepal Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) held today in Canberra of Australia.

DFAT secretary Jan Adams AO PSM, and the secretary of the Water and Energy Commission Secretariat Dinesh Kumar Ghimire signed the five-year memorandum on behalf of their respective countries.

Under the MoU, Australia will provide training, technical assistance and share internationally recognised expertise on water governance. It will complement’s Australia’s existing partnership with the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) to strengthen transboundary river basin management, localise climate action and promote green livelihoods, aligned to Government of Nepal’s transition to Green, Resilient and inclusive Development (GRID) for sustainable recovery, growth and jobs.   

The BCM was co-chaired by DFAT’s deputy secretary of Geostrategic Group Justin Hayhurst and secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Bharat Raj Paudyal.

DFAT’s deputy secretary Hayhurst was pleased to open the second meeting of the Bilateral Consultation Mechanism and thanked secretary Paudyal and the Nepal delegation for travelling to Australia. During his opening remarks deputy secretary Hayhurst welcomed Australia and Nepal’s strong people-to-people links with over 120,000 Nepali calling Australia home. He also congratulated Nepal on its recent democratic local elections and reiterated the two countries’ strong commitment to democracy, domestically and internationally. “Australia supports a free, open and resilient Indo-Pacific and the international rules-based order,” he said, welcoming  Nepal’s strategic outlook. 

Both sides, on the occasion, also noted mutual climate change and energy challenges and the importance of achieving net-zero emissions. In addition to talks on Nepal’s development priorities and future cooperation agenda, Australia undertook to share its expertise in forest fire management, and search as rescue initiatives through a new package of development support. 

The Bilateral Consultation Mechanism was established in 2017 between the Australia Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the Government of Nepal Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The two sides also reviewed the bilateral relations between Nepal and Australia and exchanged views on further strengthening the bilateral relations and cooperation in different fields including education, energy, investment, trade, tourism, technology transfer, migration, cooperation in climate action, and disaster risk reduction, among others. Both sides agreed to prioritise the exchange of high-level visits, promote people to people contacts, and facilitate trade, investment and transfer of technology. They also discussed cooperation in multilateral forums, including the exchange of experiences in UN Peace keeping operations.

While appreciating Australian cooperation to Nepal, foreign secretary Paudyal requested the Australian side to place Nepal as a priority country for Australian aid, support for post-Covid economic recovery, graduation from the LDC status, and realize the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development (SDG), and consider issuing visa services from the Australian Embassy in Kathmandu.

Bilateral Consultation Mechanism between Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nepal and Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Australia was established on 14 July, 2017 and its first meeting was held in Kathmandu on 16 August 2018.

Young voices inspire sustainable development action at UN75 regional commemoration

 The United Nations (UN) is marking its 75th anniversary at a time of great disruption for the world, compounded by an unprecedented global health crisis with severe economic and social impacts. The regional commemoration jointly hosted by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and the Office of the United Nations resident coordinator in Thailand today drew attention to the power of innovation and partnerships, especially among younger generations, in building a better future post Covid-19.

“We face colossal challenges. With global solidarity and cooperation, we can overcome them,” shared UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres in a special video message. “That’s what the United Nations is all about,” he said, asking people everywhere to join together, on this anniversary. “The United Nations not only stands with you; the United Nations belong to you and is you: we the peoples.”

“History teaches that we are more effective and relevant, if we empower people to support the societal transformation that we aspire together,” UN under-secretary-general and executive secretary of ESCAP Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana said, adding that accelerating progress towards the 2030 Agenda, the Paris Agreement, the Sendai Framework, and other internationally agreed development goals, is possible only through an enhanced multilateral cooperation and development partnership.

In January 2020, the UN also launched the UN75 initiative. Dubbed the world’s largest conversation, thousands of people shared their hopes and fears for the future, as well as their expectations of international cooperation and of the UN in particular. When asked where we should be in 25 years, most responses focused on human rights, environmental protection, tackling inequalities and better access to education. Respondents also cited climate change and environmental issues as the most influential trends for the future.

Several dignitaries and eminent persons also shared messages reflecting on the organisation’s 75-year journey and the way forward. They included Prime Minister of Tuvalu Kausea Natano, Kazakhstan foreign minister Mukhtar Tleuberdi, Maldives foreign minister Abdulla Shahid, foreign minister Pradeep Kumar Gyawali, Republic of Korea foreign minister Kang Kyung-wha, Russian ambassador to Thailand Evgeny Tomikhin, chairperson of China Disabled Persons’ Federation Haidi Zhang, Fung Group senior advisor Barbara Meynert, former Pacific Community director general Dr Collin Tukuitonga, Asia director of the Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration Elenita Dano, special adviser to the UN secretary-general Fabrizio Hochschild and 75-year old former staff ESCAP member Pudpong Ujjin.

The discussions also brought to light what is needed for change to take root, from embracing sustainability in individual choices to policy support for social enterprises.

Diaspora scholars Insisted Nepal to ensure safe, orderly, and regular labour migration

 Nepali Diaspora researchers, academics and practitioners highlighted that Nepal has to utilise the Covid-19 Pandemic as an opportunity to review its existing migration policies, implementation and prepare a new roadmap for future migration speaking in a virtual dialogue today. 

The virtual policy dialogue – organised by Center for Diplomacy and Development (CDD), Nepal Institute of International Cooperation and Engagement (NIICE), Nepal Policy Institute (NPI) and Nepalese Migrants Unity Network (NeMUN) on ‘Rethinking Migration: Need of the hour’ – concluded that Nepal’s should take stern action to ensure the outmigration is safe, orderly and regular, which is the main essence of the Global Compact for Migration (GCM). GCM is the first-ever UN global agreement on a common approach to international migration in all its dimensions, which Nepal has also signed in 2019 along with other 164 countries.

Giving the welcoming remark at the virtual event, CDD founder president and former ambassador to France Mohan Krishna Shrestha emphasised that protection of migrant workers’ rights can be ensured only when the government rules and regulation are strongly implemented by the recruitment agencies in Nepal and the state makes the foreign employers accountable to protect the rights of the migrant workers.

Addressing the webinar, Foreign Employment Board (FEB) executive director Rajan Prasad Shrestha opined that to protect the Nepali workers national and international efforts should be made. He underscored the role of diaspora organisations such as NPI to advice the migration stakeholders of Nepal on future planning and policies. Shrestha also informed that the government has the policy to attract the returnee migrants in the agricultural field and they will be also mobilised in the other development sectors of the country utilising the skill and experiences they have gained abroad.

Presenting at the webinar, the chairperson of NPI Khagendra Dhakal emphasised that Migration should be a choice of Nepalis but not a forced decision for survival. 

NPI – an international think-tank initiated by the Nepali diaspora two years ago and migration has been one of the core areas of its focus – chair Dhakal pointed that all migration stakeholders should take migration as a positive tool of development for the home and host country both but how home countries can be successful in benefiting from the migration depends on the countries’ national strategies. “However, countries like Nepal have failed to link the labour migration to the development to date in most of the cases, which is what should be the future debate,” Dhakal said, adding that Nepali migrant workers have been abused and exploited in each and every stage of the migration cycle from the recruiting to the returning stage and the main cause of such exploitation is due to lack of awareness about foreign employment processes.

Referring to the recent research conducted by NPI, Dhakal said that some 70 per cent of the returnee migrants are completely unaware of what programmes the government has planned for them in their own country. He also questioned how helpless they could be when they are in a foreign land where they can’t even under the local language.

For the future policy and planning, Dhakal, who is also an Adjunct Professor at King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thailand, advised that Nepal should adopt the ‘whole of government’ approach to tackle migration for which skilling, reskilling, and upskilling, “These programmes should be conducted in collaboration with employer and host countries governments using effective labour diplomacy,” he said, suggesting the government on prioritising SDG4 and GCM Objectives 18 to ensure the safe migration and decent work for all Nepali labor migrant workers. “While conducting skill development programmes, Nepal needs to conduct market research and create intellectual debates to understand the changing trend of skills demand in the international labour market.”

Seconding Dhakal, another migration expert based in North Africa Meena Poudel said that migration is a natural process, but the exploitations are basically caused by the unethical recruitment process adopted by local recruitment agencies and foreign employer companies. “Cartels of labour migration stakeholders is the major cause for Nepali migrant workers exploitation which government has not been and is not willing to dig in in true sense,” he said, advising the government to consider the migration governance as a priority for the future migration policy planning to ensure labor migration is humane and orderly.

Ramzan Babu Ali Miya from Qatar and Sapana Basyal from Malaysia also shared their experiences of working with migrant labourers in their respective countries for the past several years. They shared the fragile conditions of Nepali migrant workers during the Covid-19 pandemic. Both of them are actively engaged with the migrant workers’ rights protection for many years in those countries. They urged the government to protect their nationals’ rights even when they are abroad to run their family’s daily lives back home in Nepal. The migrant workers are contributors to Nepal’s economy and the government should put them in the social protection framework even they are undocumented, they advised.

Summing up the policy dialogue, Jeevan Sharma associated with the University of Edinburgh, said that migration will go on despite of pandemic and other challenges through the type of jobs and destinations may change. Sharma, a migration researcher currently based in the UK, also pointed out that Nepal has realised migration in terms of financial remittance only, but a country can get much more than that from migrant labourers with effective strategies. He highlighted a consent point of all experts that migrant workers return and go back to their village and do agricultural work is an old assumption. Until and unless the basic needs are supplied in the village and the agricultural system has been transformed with the use of technology, the country may fail to attract returnees to the rural villages for agricultural work.

Sharma expressed his surprise that the government makes promises to create more employment in the country to discourage the labour migration in one hand and it is signing agreements with different countries. “This makes it harder for the public to understand what the government’s direction towards migration is actually,” questioned Sharma.

Participants of the dialogue questioned the government on the indicators of the implementation of the plans and programmes. They echoed that without effective implementation and monitoring mechanism programs on paper cannot result in the desired outcome.

The programme was moderated by the NPI executive board member Sharu Joshi, who is also a migrant expert with her intensive experience with government and UN system for the past decade. “Covid-19 has surfaced the problems of migrant workers that the public also have been realising slowly and the dialogue involving diaspora scholars’ actioners and Nepal based migration expert is just timely to chart out the future policies of migration for Nepal, she said, advising the government to create open debates and utilise diaspora intellectual resources for the informed policies of Nepal including migration. “The synergy between the diaspora scholars and Nepal based scholars could contribute significantly to achieve the national goals.”

The programme was attended by officials from the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Nepali Academics from different universities from Nepal, Policy Research Institute, Association of Nepalis in the Americas, government, former ambassadors, migrant organisations representatives, diaspora academics and practitioners from North America, Europe, Middle East, Asia-Pacific Region.