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Nepal has implemented various programs for poverty alleviation. Since the Eighth Plan as it was formulated by the democratic government elected first time after the restoration of democracy in 1990, poverty alleviation was focused specifically. Before 1990 also many programs of development were launched such as TribhuvanGramVikas Program, Development Programs in Panchayat Era (1961-1989), Departmental Projects for Local Development, Land Reform & Resettlement Program, Rapti Valley Development Program, Remote Area Development Program, Hill Transport Development Program, Regional Intensive Development Program, Integrated Rural Development Program, Targeted Credit Program, Subsidy Program (Agriculture Input Subsidy, Food Subsidy, Capital and Interest Subsidy).

Likewise, many programs as Perspective Study of Agricultural Development for Nepal (1970-90), Ten-year Agricultural Development Plan (1975-85), Nepal Agricultural Sector Strategy Study, and Basic Needs Program were in this line. Few political efforts for development were Go back to the Village National Campaign (GVNC), Development Budget for Rural Self-help, Build Your Village Yourself (BYVY), Village Development & Self-reliance Program. However, the programs GaneshMan Peace Movement and Integrated Peace and Development Program (IPDP) also exercised in Maoist affected areas.

The programs such as Agriculture Perspective Plan and Poverty Alleviation Fund are in practice at present. Directly implemented programs under UN systems (LDP, REDP, RUPP, MEDP, SAPAP etc.), GTZ assisted programs and other INGOs/NGOs programs are also moving in their own ways for poverty alleviation and have developed the habit of group savings with social awareness among the poor.

Targeted programs with micro-credit plus are playing their important roles for poverty alleviation. Some of these are: (1) Small Farmers Development Program(SFDP)

Small Farmers Development Program (SFDP)program has been running under Agricultural Development Bank since 1975. The main features of the program are (1) income generating activities, (2) group savings, (3) social activities, and (4) community development activities. Other benefits are the adult literacy, health service, child care centre, drinking water, low cost toilet and stove of clay, skill training on agricultural and micro-enterprise, interest subsidy, group insurance scheme etc. The sub-project offices (SPOs) were transformed into Small Farmers Cooperative limited (SFCLs), organization formed by small farmers. It is initiated in order to run the program in financially viable and sustainable manner by empowering the grass-root level organization of small farmers. A Small Farmers Development Bank has been established to channel the financial services to SFCLs.

Production Credit for Rural Women (PCRW). PCRW was started in 1982 with the initiation of UNICEF. The main objective of the program is to provide credit for the women through the Women Development Section since 1988. The program has created awareness among the women with the achievement of literacy enhancement, access to the credit, training packages, study tours, socialization, community and confidence building, experience sharing programs. Micro Credit Project for Women (MCPW). MCPW is under implementation with the loan assistance of Asian Development Bank. This is a first credit program with the government recognition of the NGOs for forming women groups, mobilizing savings and credit.

In between 1992 and 1996, five regional rural development banks were established in the five development regions through the initiation of Nepal Rastra Bank. These were the replication of Grameen Bank of Bangladesh with the aim to uplift the socio-economic situation of particularly rural women. The collection rate was at the peak point and many positive effects were found. Working in an intensive supervised system, it bears good experience of dealing with groups of poor farmers. However, GBBs are as the gap fillers for the rural financial services.

Intensive Banking Program, Banking with the Poor, Lead Bank Program were exercised in the Nepali soil. The priority sector lending and deprived sector credit are other initiation in this regard.

The practice of co-operatives was adopted in 1953. After the restoration of democracy in 1990, with the adoption of economic liberalization, and the amendment in the Cooperative Act 1992, the number of cooperative societies took big jump. A large number of the saving and credit co-operatives emerged dramatically and collapsed with the same speed. Along with the primary cooperatives, Nepal Federation of Savings and Credit Cooperative Union (NEFSCUN), Central Consumers Cooperative Union, Central Dairy Cooperative Union and National Cooperative Bank have emerged.

The wholesalers as Rural Micro-finance Development Centre (RMDC) and Rural Self-reliance Fund (RSRF) are providing micro-credit funds. Likewise, numbers of INGOs/NGOs are providing services through group mobilization.

With the initiation of Development Bank Act 1995 (now under Bank and Financial Institutions Ordinance) dozens of new development banks (Utthan Development Bank, Deprosc Development Bank etc.) are providing microfinance services.

Tenth Plan sets the target to reduce poverty to the level of 30 percent. A 10 percent improvement in the human development indicator is expected by the improvement in the social indicators. In the context of development goals economic growth is targeted at the level of 6.2 percent.

The strategy of the Tenth Plan is to implement self-employment creating, income earning and protective programs which directly benefit to the economically, geographically and socially backward groups, castes, disabled and helpless people and people living below poverty line. The Tenth Plan was based on the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP).

The World Bank has advised its member countries to formulate PRSP at country level. In this line, International Monetary Fund (IMF) also has established the Poverty Reduction Growth facility (PRGF) to replace the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility (ESAF) in 1999.

(i) Involve parliaments, cabinets and sectoral ministries in PRSP preparation at the appropriate stage.

(iii) Develop appropriate indicators to enable timely monitoring of performance and feedback.

(v) Develop alternative macroeconomic scenarios in PRSPs, including contingency spending plans and measures supporting alternative revenue paths.

(vi) Include policies to reduce the risks from external shocks and endure debt sustainability.

Check points for the World Bank and IMF (Brain Ames, Gita Bhatt and Mark Plant, Finance & Development, June 2002) are:

(i) Provide timely and constructive feedback to PRSP teams but resist making extensive comments on drafts that could undermine country ownership.

(ii) Coordinate assistance in preparation of poverty diagnoses and poverty and social impact analysis.

(iii) Provide timely and appropriate analysis of key areas of PRSPs, prepared jointly with governments, whenever possible.

(iv) Intensify efforts to understand the links between policy actions and pro-poor growth at the country level.

(v) Respect and align assistance with national cycles for government decisions making, particularly annual budget cycles.

(vi) Align donors' own business plans with national PRSPs, including performance triggers and conditionality, and justify the choice of instruments against PRSP objectives.

The overriding objective of the development efforts in Nepal is poverty alleviation. Despite some achievements over the past decade, much remains to be done in order to achieve the targets of poverty alleviation. The country is committed to reduce poverty by focusing and prioritizing all policies and programs on poverty alleviation.
Poverty incidence has remained high in Nepal . The low and yearly fluctuating agricultural growth rates, inadequate social service delivery, and limited coverage of successful targeted programs are some of the reasons for the continued high incidence of poverty. Political uncertainties, weak institutional capacity and weak public resource management have fuelled its perpetuation. Thus, poverty reduction requires concerted efforts in an integrated and comprehensive manner on all fronts.
The PRSP/Tenth Plan being prepared by the NPC provides a general framework for poverty reduction strategy within which all the stakeholders will act. The Plan will be evolved through a participatory process.
The main objective of the PRSP/Tenth Plan is to identify the much-sought poverty reduction approach in Nepal . The key actions for the approach include policy changes, institutional reforms, and implementing targeted programs and projects. This definitely is not an easy task. Efforts are needed to formulate and implement appropriate strategies that will ensure the sustainability and effectiveness of the medium and long-term development projects.
The PRSP/Tenth Plan includes objectives and strategies for poverty reduction and is supported by medium term expenditure framework, which provides three to five years' time bound action plan. Macroeconomic framework and policy matrix to achieve a faster and sustainable economic growth has also been presented.
The framework and strategies developed in the PRSP/Tenth Plan will help donors to develop their respective assistance strategies based on their comparative advantage and resource availability. However, on the other hand, it will discourage donors from producing separate country strategy papers of their own. They will instead be able to pick up the areas of their assistance from the prioritized programs listed in the PRSP/Tenth Plan.
The past development plans were drawn-up to a large extent centrally and implemented by various public agencies. The full PRSP/Tenth Plan will mark a deviation from the past by making it as participatory as possible.
The PRSP/Tenth Plan will thus be based on a bottom-up approach. The inputs of the local people in plan preparation process will now be recognized as a critical element in building up of a plan’s "ownership". In addition, the process will also help in the diversion of national resources to the projects and programs originating from the local communities.
Comparing the poverty incidence, intensity and severity by ecological zones, the poverty situation in the Mountain zone is seen to be more, deeper and more severe than that in the Hills and the Terai.
It is rather difficult to investigate variation in poverty incidence, if any, across gender, mainly due to insufficient data. Still it is possible to analyze two measures of poverty, namely, the size distribution of male and female in poor households and the poverty incidence of female headed households. NLSS data do not indicate that there are more females than males in poor households. However, some sort of feminization of poverty is evident through the second indicator pointed out above. The same data set suggests that “female-headed households in general and widow-headed households in particular, are much more likely to be poor if there is no adult male present”.
Most of the economic and social indicators have improved in Nepal since the collection of such indicators was started roughly four decades ago. However, as the country started with very low values for such indicators, the current situation is still characterized by low levels of economic and social indicators even by South Asian standards. More than 48 percentage of adult population cannot read or write; only less than half the population have access to safe drinking water; and the country has infant mortality rate of 64 per thousand — all of which are still much lower even by South Asian standards.
The final version of the PRSP/Tenth Plan will be adopted by the National Planning Commission and the Cabinet before or immediately after the presentation of the annual budget.

The Plan was designed to increase per capita agricultural growth six-fold from its current level of 0.5%to 3% per year stimulating non-agricultural growth in employment-intensive goods and services throughout. APP sets out a framework for relieving constraints through improved farm to market access, development of credit institutions, improved irrigation and liberalization of fertilizer supplies. Such expansion would provide jobs for the poor, particularly poor women, and thereby greatly reduce the number of rural people in poverty, which has been gradually deteriorating over the past few decades. It would allow Nepal to withdraw its most fragile land resources from arable agriculture and return them to environmentally sound forestry and other more suitable and natural uses.