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The Millennium Development Goals Progress - Challenges and Opportunities in Nepal
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The Government's Three-Year Interim Plan 2008-10 and the upcoming National Development Strategy (postponed) renews Nepal's commitment to the MDGs. While progress on the MDGs has generally been good, it is clear that major development issues remain in Nepal, as well as issues to be resolved in relation to all the MDGs. Nepalese have the lowest life expectancy in Asia, the largest share of undernourished children, and most importantly, development has been significantly unequal across social groups – an aspect that is not reflected through MDG indicators that measure national averages. Ensuring equitable growth is one of the key challenges at this point. I. Goals furthest out of reach: Goal 1b: Eradicate Hunger Target: Halve between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger
Almost half of Nepalese children under five are chronically malnourished (stunted). This figure is within the top five in the world. Although there has been some development on the hunger indicators in the past, the recent rapid rise in food prices and the consequences of climate change pose the main challenges in achieving the target. The average growth for agricultural GDP in 2000-05 was only 2.8 percent, which is only slightly above the population growth rate.
Goal 1a: Eradicate Extreme Poverty Target: Halve between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than one dollar per day
Urbanisation, remittances, and higher wages have resulted in a decline of poverty incidence by over a percentage point per year since the mid-nineties, from 42 to 31 percent. However, the gains for the most excluded groups have been modest and inequality has grown. In the past ten years the Gini-coefficient increased from 0.34 to 0.47 indicating that the gap between the rich and the poor grew further. Nepal has the highest Gini-coefficient in Asia. Geographic comparisons also show high disparities. Poverty incidence is the highest in Mid- and Far-Western regions, 45 and 41 percent respectively. While in urban Kathmandu poverty incidence is only at 3 percent, in for example the Mid-Western district of Rolpa 59 percent of the population live under the poverty line. Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality Target: Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-5 mortality rate
A well-coordinated scale up of highly effective child survival interventions, such as vitamin A distribution, immunization and pneumonia treatment has contributed to the fact that the mortality rate among children under five years has been halved during the past 10 years. The largest challenge today is addressing mortality among newborns, now accounting for 54 percent of all deaths among under-five children. Community based interventions addressing major causes of neonatal deaths should be expanded as quickly as possible. Goal 6b: Combat Malaria and other diseases Target: Have halted by 2015, and begun to reverse, the spread of HIV and AIDS, malaria, and other major diseases
Well performing and integrated national tuberculosis and malaria control programmes have resulted in a significant decline in the incidence of both, TB decreasing from 460 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in 1990 to 240 today, and malaria from 196 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in 1990 to only 18 today. Goal 7b: Ensure access to water and sanitation Target: Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to drinking water
The share of people living without water and sanitation has more than halved since the nineties. Already since 2000, access to clean water has risen by sixteen percentage points from 73 to 89 percent. Rural sanitation coverage remains a main concern in this sector. III. Goals that are achievable with major changes Goal 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education Target: Ensure that by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete primary schooling
There are great improvements in net primary enrolment, from 64 percent in 1990 to close to 90 percent today. However, serious concerns remain about the quality of primary education and the low school completion rates.
Target: Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and at all levels of education no later than 2015
Girls' enrolment is approaching the same levels as the rates for boys – 95 girls for every 100 boys now enroll in primary school. An effective quota-system in 2008 elections brought in over 33 percent of women in the Constituent Assembly. The Civil Service Act 2008 also calls for larger representation of excluded groups, including women. However, women's low status in the control of resources and political decision making remains, as does high incidence of violence against women (including early marriage and sex selective abortions).
Target: Reduce by three-quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio (per 100,000 live births)
Maternal mortality has fallen by about 50 percent from the mid-nineties, from 539 to 281 cases per 100,000 births. In January 2009 the Government made delivery and management of obstetric complications free of cost in all public health facilities. However, the fact remains that only 1 out of 5 births are attended by a skilled birth attendant, linking also clearly to the high mortality rates of newborns (see above). Safe delivery and emergency obstetric care services are unavailable and unequally distributed, especially due to unavailable human resources. Currently there are only 700 trained skilled birth attendants (midwifes) from the 5400 needed.
Target: Have halted by 2015, and begun to reverse, the spread of HIV and AIDS, malaria, and other major diseases
The national figure on HIV prevalence is slightly reversing (0.49% in 2007). However, Nepal's HIV epidemic is concentrated among population groups at higher risk of transmission – injecting drug users, female sex workers, men who have sex with men, and high-risk migrants. Just over 42% percent of all HIV infections in Nepal are among migrants, which increases the risk of transmission to the spouses of migrants as well as from mother to child. Another cause for concern is the high HIV prevalence among young injecting drug users.
Target: Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources
After a slump in the 1990s and early 2000s, forest cover has been stabilized in the past years, reaching 29 percent today. Also protected areas have increased slightly through community protected areas, which benefit the environment and protect the livelihoods of communities. However, factors like internal migration, uncontrolled encroachment of forest for habitation and agriculture, and high dependency on forest resources for livelihood, threatens to slow down further development and destroy acquired improvements.
Develop a Global Partnership for Development MDG 8 targets trade, stepping up aid (especially to LDCs), debt relief, ensuring decent work for all, and the mobilisation of international organisations and the private sector to find global solutions to common problems and to apply them locally.
Nepal relies heavily on official development assistance (ODA) to implement its development programmes and to reach the MDGs. In the past years, the Government and the donor community have engaged in a regular dialogue through the Nepal Development Forum mechanism, and ODA to Nepal has steadily increased, from about USD 430 million in 2004 to USD 578 million in 2007, and about USD 640 million in 2008. The Government projects USD 650 million for the fiscal year 2008/09. On Aid Effectiveness and harmonisation, the OECD DAC survey on Nepal published in March 2008 made recommendations on ways to align donor and government programmes more effectively. In September 2008 the Ministry of Finance participated in the 3rd High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Accra, contributing to the global review of the harmonisation efforts. A new foreign aid policy with a stronger focus on aid effectiveness will be issued in connection to the Nepal Development Forum in May 2009. In line with the aid effectiveness agenda, the UN system in Nepal is taking continued steps towards harmonising its programmes with government systems – support to the sector-wide approaches on education and health being strong cases in point – and to further internal coordination and joint programming to lessen transaction costs of the Government. Efforts will be made to harmonise the UN Peace Fund for Nepal with the Government's Nepal Peace Trust Fund. Alongside efforts towards stronger alignment, more efforts are needed towards strengthening the capacity of government institutions to manage aid effectively and reduce the fiduciary risk of providing aid through government bodies. On enhancing trade, Nepal passed an important milestone when it joined the World Trade Organisation in 2004. Nepal, like many other LDCs, remains vulnerable to global economic volatility due to its highly concentrated export trade. In line with WTO requirements, Nepal needs to put in place a coherent trade integration strategy to address constraints in the business environment, institutional , supply, demand and capacity issues. Millennium Development Goals and its space in the recent Budget
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Millennium Development Goals in Nepal - Progress on key indicatorsNews Updates
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