‘Poverty, illiteracy major challenges’

By A Staff Reporter

Kathmandu, June 10: The Millennium Development Goals Progress Report 2002-Agenda for Action, an Agenda for Partnership, published by the United Nations Country Team of Nepal states that poverty is still a major challenge. The report says acess to primary education is low, children under five are underweight, literacy rate of women is very low and maternal and child mortality is still very high. HIV/AIDS epidemic in Nepl is confined to vulnerable groups, but the prevalence rate is increasing alarmingly. In addition the country’s natural resources continued to be threatened, according to the report.

The findings of the report say that the ocuntry is not yet on track to achieve any Millenium Development Goal; targets that the world’s leaders set at the Millennium Summit in September 2002 to reduce poverty in all its dimensions and manifestations. Through specific baseline and numerical targets, the report offers a chance to examine achievements, to identify shortfalls, and to indicate priority areas for development assistance.

"Withoug monitoring, without tracking the progress of quantifiable indicators, such as income-poverty, literacy rates, net enrollment in primary education and maternal mortality rates, it is impossible to know whether or not poverty reduction and human programmes and policies are producing the desired results. Without such information, strategies cannot be evaluated and fine tuned to be made more effective," said Henning Karcher, UNDP Resident Representative in Nepal. He further added, "MDG report can create a foundation for achieving the goal of successful poverty reduction and human development much more effectively," according to a press release.

This document is the first progress report for Nepal on the status of attainment of these Millennium Development Goals, or MDGs. Through specific baselines and numerical targets, the report offers a chance to examine Nepal’s achievements, to identify shortfalls, and to indicate priority areas for development assistance.

It hsows that halving the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by 2015 in nepal will be difficult to achieve. Continued political instability, growing fiscal instability and diminishing export markets are major challenges in the road to recover.

Food insecurity remains a principal cause of poverty for the majority of the Nepalese people and is a key factor in malnutrition among children. While nutritional deficiency among under-five children appears to be slowly declinin since 1990, under-nutrition remains a problem. Today, nearly 10 million people live in absolute poverty, defined as a level of income insufficienty to procure a basket of minimum food (2124 kilocalories per person per day) and non-food items.

The government has completed the preparation of an Interim-Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (I-PRSP) and is in the process of preparing a full –fledged PRSP to coincide with the Tenth Five Year Plan by June 2002. Poverty reduction will remain the principal objective of development interventions to be reflected in both policy documents.

Boycott those who practice untouchability: Nepal

Kathmandu, June 11 (RSS): CPN-UML general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal has stressed the need to launch a social boycott campaign against those who indulge in the practise of untouchability.

Nepal, who was inaugurating the second national conference of the Nepal Free Dalit Students Organisation at Kirtipur today, said untouchability should be treated as a crime and litigation brought against it, political activists who practise untouchability should be expelled and police and administration personnel who assist in such practices sacked.

He said the Dalit should be given equal opportunity in politics and the social and administrative sectors and attention given to the reservations demanded for the women, Dalit, the ethnic groups and indigenous people.

Nepal said discrimination, inequality, illiteracy and poverty should be ended and the very sources of rebellion mopped up.

On one particular issue, Nepal accused the Prime Minister of being partyless and said the latter had not consulted with the political parities about holding the general elections.

He said the elections should be held on time and should be free of rigging, and if the spirit of the people is distorted the people will themselves punish those responsible.

National Assembly vice chairman Ramprit Paswan demanded skill-oriented, scientific, people-oriented and vocational education opportunities and job reservations for the Dalit.

Also speaking on the occasion were representatives of various organisations as well as Shanta Manavi, J.B. Tuhure, Rajendra Rai, Min Biswokarma, Dipak Jung Biswokarma, D.B. Sagar, Krishna Biswokarma, Gunalaxmi Sharma Biswokarma, Him Bahadur Bista and Bijaya Sainju.

The programme was presided over by convenor Hom Nepali.

The conference being held around the slogan 'our campaign for the end of racialism, untouchability and discrimination and for free education and employment' will run until tomorrow.

The organisation came into being in 2054 Bikram year.

Seasonal milk holiday affects Palpa's farmers

By A Staff Reporter

Tansen, Palpa, June 11: The concrete shed he built for his cows and buffaloes look evidently well built than farmer Ram Prasad Basyal's own house in this narrow valley village.

Yet, Basyal is a happy man pampering his livestock – eight buffaloes and cows each with Rs 22,000 price tag. This is what he gets looking after their "luxury": 130 litres of milk a day. Selling price: A little less than Rupees 20 per litre.

"If I look after them (cows and buffaloes) well, I know my living standard will go up," says a confident Basyal who had started this business with three cows and two buffaloes few years back.

The living standard, visibly, has already gone up. With his increased income, he has shifted to a new house – equipped with modern facilities like TV. He has enrolled his two sons and a daughter into a local private school and his savings is on steadily on the rise.

Similar success story is in the neighborhood. Tired of earning his living in India for more than a decade, Subash Kharal finally listened to his wife and mustered up to raise livestock at his place a couple of years ago. Today, he has six buffaloes and his earnings are far better than before.

More and more farmers in this district are doing what Basyal and Kharal are, thanks to the government's Third Livestock Development Project (TLDP) that has led to 65 per cent growth rate of improved livestock population in this district. Before the project came in four years, for instance, there were a little 400 cows and bulls of improved species in this district. Today, there are around 800.

The number of buffaloes has gone up to 8,300 from a little above 6,000 before the commencement of the around US$ 28 million TLDP which is effective in 19 districts including this one.

The Asian Development Bank has provided loan covering 65 per cent of the project's total cost. The project's physical completion is estimated to be around 80 per cent with the elapsed loan period of 80 per cent as of March 31 this year, according to the bank. The scheme is scheduled to be closed on July 31, 2003.

The rise in the number of cows and buffaloes has led to the increase in milk production: almost 35,000 metric ton last year – up from not even 30,000 metric ton in 1998.

With this trick of the trade, local villagers in this district have also learnt a new terminology – milk holiday. Nearly four months a year – beginning August – these farmers have no place to sell almost half of the milk they produce during that time. "That is our worst nightmare for now," says Basyal. "The milk we produce simply gets wasted during that period."

The autumn season is the time when buffaloes produce more milk, as that is the time when they deliver their offspring and get enough forage. But, with the limited market, farmers have nowhere to sell the surplus milk.

"Lack of infrastructure like road is the main hurdle," says Dr. Tirtha Raj Regmi, Chief of the District Livestock Services Office, Palpa. "We need to build agricultural roads to reach many pocket areas where milk production has been extraordinarily successful."

Ironically, when the market needs more milk during other seasons, the farmers' buffaloes milk-production declines. "We are caught in a real catch-22 situation," says Prem Nath Nepal of the Professional Buffalo Domestication Committee nearby Tansen Municipality.

Problems began, say locals, after the Lumbini Dairy Development Project stopped buying milk from Palpa District since it began to collect it from Rupandehi District. What's more, the local restaurants and hotels in and around Tansen Municipality continue to use powder milk even when farmers suffer milk holiday.

"These are tough times for us," says Ram Prasad Pokhrel, Chairman of a local body of the milk producers in this district. "Marketing is our biggest challenge."