Poverty Alleviation
Concern For The International Community

Siddhi B. Ranjitkar

THE world has billions of people living under the poverty line even when the line is drawn at one dollar a day income. The International Community foresees to reduce the number of people living on less than one dollar a day to a half. To this end, the International Community thought it necessary to adopt development goals and then draw a road map to reach those goals.

Seven Goals

The International Community of one hundred and eighty nine countries coming together at the Millennium Summit in September 2000 set seven Millennium Development Goals such as eradicate extreme poverty, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases and ensure environmental sustainability. The summit targeted at achieving these goals by 2015. A year later, an eighth goal: develop a global partnership for development was added to the Millennium Development Goals.

The International Community agreed on preparing a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) to achieve the target set for 2015. It is in fact a road map to be prepared by the low-income countries for better targeting their public policies of poverty alleviation. More than ten developing countries have completed their first full PRSPs.

The financiers such as International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have decided to provide the low-income countries with debt relief and concessionary lending based on their PRSPs. In fact, the IMF has used PRSP for lending the poor countries since 1999. The IMF has replaced the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility (ESAF) by the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF). It is targeted at poverty reduction. The IMF and the World Bank have taken debt relief initiatives for providing the heavily indebted poor countries (HIPCs) with deeper and faster debt relief for implementing their poverty relief strategies.

Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper is a centerpiece of the International Community for assaulting the poverty prevailing in the developing countries. Every low-income country prepares a PRSP with the participation of government and donor officials, non-governmental organisations, labour unions, religious organizations, research and policy development institutes and other stakeholders. It is a result-oriented paper, focuses on the outcomes that will benefit the poor, takes a long-term holistic perspective, and stresses transparency and accountability.

There is no standard prescription for preparing a PRSP; however, each PRSP needs to contain at least four main elements such as description of a participatory process used for preparing it, poverty diagnosis: identification of poverty growth and of obstacles to poverty reduction, realistic socio-economic growth targets based on the poverty diagnosis, and systems for monitoring outcomes of actions, and finally priority public actions within specific budget constraints to achieve the targets set in a PRSP.

A country needs to involve parliament, cabinet and line ministries in preparing a good PRSP at appropriate stages, analyze the impact of major poverty reduction programmes and policy actions on the poor, develop appropriate indicators of targets to enable timely monitoring of performance and feedback, set realistic targets for economic growth and poverty reduction, develop alternative macroeconomic scenarios, contingency spending plans, and measures supporting alternative revenue mobilisation, and include policies to reduce the risks from external shocks and ensure debt sustainability.

Development partners particularly donors assisting a country in their efforts to poverty reduction need to provide a PRSP team with timely and constructive feedback but resist making extensive comments on a draft that might undermine country ownership. They need to coordinate assistance for diagnosing poverty, for poverty and social impact analysis, provide timely and appropriate analysis of key areas of a PRSP. They also need to intensify efforts to understand links between policy actions and pro-poor growth, then align their assistance for government decision making with annual budget cycles of the recipient countries, and align their business plans with a national PRSP, and support capacity building of civil society.

The IMF and the World Bank launched a major review of PRSPs in July 2001. Only a few countries have completed their PRSPs by that time. Therefore, these two multi-lateral donor agencies focused on the process of preparing PRSPs and their contents rather than on the impacts of PRSPs on poverty reduction while reviewing them. The next review of PRSPs is scheduled for 2005. Most probably the reviewers might be able to concentrate on the impact and outcomes of PRSPs at that time.

The review of PRSPs revealed interesting things that are useful for both the government and other stakeholders. Most governments have intensified their efforts to identify the causes of poverty and have been serious about designing poverty reduction strategies. The policymakers have gained the better knowledge of poverty and the priorities of the poor. Some countries have projected unrealistic revenue forecasts and then higher expenditure on poverty alleviation programmes.

Low-income countries are very vulnerable to external shocks. They therefore need to be alert to possible external shocks and to their extreme vulnerability to such shocks. The immediate impact of external shocks is always on the poor. They therefore need to develop appropriate social safety nets to insulate the poor from such shocks.

Countries preparing PRSPs have difficulties in clearly linking their policy actions with either a comprehensive diagnosis of poverty or an analysis of their impact on the poor despite the availability of poverty data and analysis. The main problem is of national capacity constraints and inherent technical difficulties. Therefore, it is felt that development partners particularly the World Bank needs to step in to help those countries needing the assistance.

The next main finding of the review of PRSPs is that the donor community - from major UN organizations to bilateral donors - has accepted the principles of the PRSP and has agreed to align their assistance programmes with the support for PRSPs. However, there is a gap between donors' pledges and practices. Some recipient governments have been concerned with the procedures and reporting requirements associated with PRSP related lending operations because they find it difficult to meet the requirements. Therefore, donors need to simplify their reporting requirements for the recipient governments to be able to meet the donors' requirements.

Monitoring

The concerned government needs to do periodic evaluation of progresses in reaching the goals of poverty reduction and sustainable growth to ensure the PRSP implementation is on track and the country strategies remain relevant. The International Community needs to assess the movement toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Such a monitoring of achieving the goals will help the world community focus on providing low-income countries with sustained support for their efforts to the poverty alleviation.

Decreasing Demand Of T.U. Product

By Devi Panthi

THE history of higher education is not so old in our country. Prior to the 'National Education System Plan' introduced in 1972, Tribhuvan University consisted of University and a few number of government and affiliated colleges. Most of the colleges were initiated by educationalist and social workers after receiving very good response from the society. The teachers and people felt a great pride involving themselves in the establishment and development of those public colleges. The introduction of NESP was taken as the revolutionary step in the field of higher education. But there was suspection among the people about NESP which nationalised public colleges and upgrade the facilities of teachers and administrative staff without hesitation.

The underground political parties showed their dissatisfaction against Panchayati System and condemned the activities through various means. Gradually the underground parties began to use those higher education centers as their platforms. It became easier for them to work in a centralised and unified higher education system. Slowly the discontent reflected in the student agitation which brust in B.S. 2036 as the biggest student agitation. The political parties succeeded to influence Teachers Associations and other similar organisations to raise voice against Panchayati System. The history shows that each and every political party had a student wing and supporting group or Association of Teachers. As the political parties were banned to work in villages and towns, their strength was measured with the strength of student union and Teacher Association. It is needless to say that University pockets were the playground for the political parties to threaten the government and propagate their strength outside the country. Such wings had cordial relationship with international organisations in many countries. The political parties had their branches of sister organisations in India, such as 'Akhil Bharat Pravasi Nepali Sangha' related to Nepali Congress; 'Ekata Samaj', 'All India Nepali Student Union' related to Masal etc. All the above organisation strongly supported the movement in Nepal.

Tribhuvan University is the premier institution having more than 95% of the students of higher education scattered all over Nepal in 61 constituents and 158 affiliated campuses. The University offers diverse programmes in five technical institutes and four faculties. There is Ph.D. Programme in all four faculties and in at least two institutes. The University is working as the factory of producing teachers for its own campuses, private and other institutions.

The cost of education is very low in T.U. in comparison to other Universities of the country and neighbouring countries. The examination system is good and reliable. It handles about 5 million students annually in different examination centres. But the traditional working system is unable to meet the race and fulfill the demand of growing number of students.

T. U. being an autonomous institution having vast physical assets scattered all over the country however is unable to introduce modern technical subjects. The subjects taught in the university are traditional. The products of such subjects are not it much demand in the market. In recent years-new subjects like Computer, Information Technology, Environment Science, Hotel management, Tourism are very much in demand. But the University is not able to or willing to produce such subjects. The minute study shows that there are almost no students in many subjects even the University is not closing the department. The autonomous institution is under the grasp of politics. If anybody is rewarded or punished, the credit goes to the political party. It means the University is highly politicalised and the discipline is completely eroded in Teachers, Students and Staffs. The University has the problem of over-staff in valley but under-staff outside the valley.

T.U. has many but four big libraries - The Central Library, Kritipur and the Regional Libraries of Biratnagar, Pokhara and Nepalgunj, but the management is very poor. Many rare and good books issued long ago are not returned to the library. The laboratories are lying vacant like as they do not have sufficient materials to do all the experiments prescribed in the syllabi. All these things have direct relationship with the result. The low passes percentage of students shows the low quality of education.

T.U. lacks security forces; students, teachers, outsiders or anybody may enter the office and can assault the management, authorities and break the property. Many universities of Asian countries have their own security forces, that protect the authority and University property but in T.U. nothing is thought about this.

Shoplifting & Headlines

By PNK

STEALING and shoplifting may not be desirable to most of the people when they have to preach but they happen in real life. The desire to acquire things exists in the mind of everyone. It's just the desire to possess something that one needs but one doesn't have the financial back up to indulge in.
It happens all the time with shopkeepers complaining the thousands of rupees good being lifted from their shops. "What can we do despite taking all the precautionary measures?" they complain. It's a true story that shopkeepers have to read despite their reluctance to do so.

When a small diamond piece of gem or a gold coin gets stolen the shop owners get the hiccups. It happens time and again. When there are lots of customers in a pop and mom type of store, hiring extra hands to monitor all of the customers is not easy. A handful of chickpeas or a potato or two getting stolen now and then doesn't trouble the owner but more than that he might be doomed in the long run. Or when rocks and stones turns up in containers instead of copper scraps or wires, then the matter takes a serious turn.

Now the focus turns to the sprouting departmental stores or supermarkets. They have a well organised system of surveillance and many walkers in are nabbed before they can walk out with their 'loot'. In Kathmandu, the monitoring system in supermarkets may be somewhat not up to the standard that can be found in the West. There too shop lifting is present. The smaller fries get no coverage in papers whether national or international papers. But when a celebrity gets charged with shoplifting then the matter is different.

Recently what made news in sports circles was that the daughter of Muhammad Ali was charged with shoplifting. Yes, those who have the money to pay for the thing try their hand at shoplifting. It seems that it's sheer fun for getting excitement of doing the illegal or what is morally wrong.

It's boredom that creates a craving for excitement. The deed may be right or wrong according to the norms of the society or the laws of the land. Of course, robbery is reported in Nepal. Things like fridge, computer, televisions sets being stolen from houses are also frequently reported. Pickpockets roam around in groups is also well known. But shoplifting cases have hardly been reported. Does this suggest that this counter culture has not developed here. Maybe! Or are we more law-abiding citizens despite poverty writ large on the face of the majority of the people.

Instead of shoplifting, it could be possible we are more addicted to window shopping which is not illegal in any sense of the word. Empty pockets tell a sad tale. But a few minutes of gazing with awe at the things displayed even in the most posh has the power to relieve the monotonous feeling of not being to possess one or more of the items.

Shoplifting takes place but it's our bad luck that celebrities or the rich don't make the headlines. That possibly is a silver lining in the dismal times that we're in.