Resource gap of Rs 451b threatens MDGs achievement

KATHMANDU, Aug 24: Even though the government has long been boasting that Nepal is on track of achieving most targets set under Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a latest study says Nepal is likely to miss the targets, particularly related to hunger, employment, gender balance, environment and reproductive health.



Worse still, MDGs Need Assessment for Nepal 2010 released on Wednesday reveals that the country suffers from a resource gap to the tune of Rs 451.43 billion over the last 5 years of the MDGs period. This further slims the country´s chances of achieving the goals by 2015.[break]



Nepal is on track to achieve goals like universal primary education, rise in household income, improvement in child health and maternal health.



“We made impressive progress on crucial social sectors like health and education. However, given the resource gap and low absorption capacity, it will be challenging to achieve targets like hunger reduction, gender balance and universal access to reproductive health, among others,” said Dr Dinesh Chandra Devkota, Vice-Chairman of National Planning Commission (NPC).



Targets that Nepal is likely to miss, according to the report of NPC and UNDP, include the ones like halving the population below minimum level of dietary energy consumption, proportion of underweight children (aged between 6-59 months) and proportion of stunted children (aged 6-69 months).



Nepal also faces difficulty in achieving targeted survival rate to Grade 5 in primary education, literacy rate for 15-24 years old, proportion of births attended by skilled attendants, universal access to reproductive health, and proportion of population using an improved sanitation facility.







If Nepal is to achieve the targets, it must reduce proportion of population below minimum level of dietary energy consumption to 21 percent by 2015 whereas such proportion stood at 25.4 percent in 2010.



Likewise, the report notes the proportion of underweight children in 2010 stood at 36.4 percent against the target of 29 percent, proportion of stunted children is 46.8 percent against the target of 30 percent, survival rate to Grade 5 in primary education is 77.9 percent against cent percent target and literacy rate for 15-24 years old is 86.5 percent against the target of cent percent.



“It is high time that we mobilized maximum domestic resources and for this peace and timely formulation of constitution is pretty important. We are also in regular talks with the donor community to shore up external assistance for strategic interventions meant for achieving the MDG,” said Devkota.



The report also urges the government to improve aid effectiveness to garner more support from the global funds for implementing necessary policy intervention.

Presenting the report, Dr Govinda Nepal, leader of the team that prepared the report, stressed on the need to focus on small farmers, food security, employment creation, nutrition, maternal health and environment.



“It is important to ensure an enabling environment and capacity enhancement for better implementation of projects and programs as well as provisioning for the required level of budget,” Nepal said.



Robert Piper, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, suggested that Nepal has to focus on policy interventions in sectors which are difficult to achieve the MDG by 2015. (See table on page 8)

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