MDG targets

The new report on UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), set at the turn of the century, has shown a mixture of success and shortfalls in pursuing and achieving the MDG targets by Nepal. The good news is that Nepal is among those countries that are closer to fulfilling the MDGs and it belongs to a region which has already achieved 50 percent of the twin targets of halving poverty and hunger prevalence by the year 2015. The report ‘Global Monitoring Report 2011: Improving the Odds of Achieving the MDGs’ released in Washington on Friday by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund has lauded Nepal for already achieving the target of halving (by 2015) the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and also commended Nepal for giving sufficient attention to indigenous communities, adding that such attention has been highly missing in majority of the other developing countries of the world. It is worth noting that the country has achieved this despite the sluggish economic growth, political instability and worsening law and order situation ofthe past decade.



However, it is certain that Nepal, on its own, will miss the targets of halving the poverty and hunger and achieving the universal primary education with just more than 50 percent of students completing primary education last year. The Nepal Human Development Report 2010 showed that only 17.2 percent females and 48.5 percent males of Dalits from Tarai are literate. Just 5.2 and 19.2 percent of them have acquired secondary or the higher education. Likewise, 26.5 and 61.8 percent Muslim females and males are literate. Only 12.0 and 25.5 percent of them are secondary or the higher education graduates respectively. The report has pointed that Nepal is also lagging behind in halving maternal mortality and under-five mortality rates by 2015. According to the National Planning Commission’s latest progress report, 41 out of every 1,000 children die before completing the age of one year. Nepal needs to bring down this number to just 36 by 2015 to achieve the MDG in infant mortality rate.



It is well known that only a far-sighted development-oriented policy can help us to achieve the vital MDGs. Though relevant policy formulation has been undertaken in the past, Nepal has been consistently inconsistent in implementing the national programs, which benefit the rural poor, especially in the remote hill districts and the poorest in the Tarai region. Educating children, improving health services, financing infrastructures and protecting environmental hazards are priorities no state can afford to ignore. This, however, requires prudent planning and implementation with decentralization of authority to local bodies and management of funds received in abundance from the donors. At the end of last year, donors agreed to provide $49.3 billion to the International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank’s fund for supporting poor countries achieve the MDGs. Nepal must take benefit from the IDA funds. With right focus and  will on the part of the government, Nepal will be able to  achieve the MDGs,  if not by 2015, by the end of this decade.

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