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Kathmandu Friday February 16, 2001 Falgun 05, 2057.
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ADB for
partnership programme
Post Report
KATHMANDU, Feb 15 - Experts have attributed
lack of political commitment, lack of decentralization and women’s empowerment and
rampant corruption in the administration to the failure of poverty reduction programs in
the country.
Bishwo Keshar Maskey, Assistant Resident
Representative of Asian Development Bank (ADB) to Bangladesh, said that Bangladesh
has brought down poverty from 70 per cent to 40 per cent within 28 years.
He was speaking at a seminar on
‘Partnership for Poverty Alleviation: Lessons from Bangladesh’ here today.
It has been more than 40 years that Nepal
initiated periodic development plans, but even according to the government statistics, 42
per cent of the population is below the poverty line. However, the non-governmental
organizations put the number over 70 per cent.
Population control, expansion in education
and women’s participation in economic activities have enabled Bangladesh to reduce
poverty considerably, despite it suffers from various natural calamities every year,
Maskey said.
Participants of the seminar said that
production of chemical fertilizers at a low cost, adoption of modern agriculture system
and government’s subsidy on agricultural inputs helped its people to produce one
million tons more crops than their necessity this year alone while it used to import
cereals from Nepal a few years back.
Richard Vokes, Resident Representative of ADB
to Nepal, said that the Bank would initiate partnership program after studying the
strategies of the Tenth Plan and the poverty alleviation programs.
‘Lack of capital and power, political
instability and unequal distribution of investment has weakened the struggle against
poverty’, Vokes said.
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