National 1 (Spotlight Weekly)

Girding Up The Loins

The government invites all stakeholders in a preparatory meeting in a run up to the major donors meet this month

By SANJAYA DHAKAL

The last week witnessed the political leaders not only leading the agitation in the streets but also taking part in the pre-consultation meeting of the Nepal Development Forum (NDF) organized by the government under various themes.

In a sure sign of evolving maturity, the political parties, civil society and other stakeholders were seen engaged in vigorous debates about the country’s strategy regarding the donor support.

A Farmer tilling his field : Are my concerns heard?

With the objective of making its presentations all inclusive and representative at the NDF, which is scheduled to be held a month later in Kathmandu, the government has organized the NDF pre-consultations.

Various themes including private sector participation, financial reforms, women empowerment, agriculture development and so on were discussed at length during the consultation meetings.

The week-long pre-consultation meeting began in capital on March 31. Experts and senior bureaucrats presented various theme working papers, which were later debated actively by political leaders and civil society representatives.

The governor at Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) Dr. Tilak Rawal presented a working paper on financial sector reforms. Likewise, secretaries of various ministries presented working papers about their respective fields.

Former ministers like Dr. Ram Sharan Mahat and K.P. Oli actively took part in the meetings providing suggestions.

The NDF, which is held every two years, will be participated by all the international bilateral and multilateral donors who will take stock of Nepal’s situation, analyze the efficacy of their aid to Nepal and formulate their policies regarding their future cooperation to Nepal.

The NDF actually is a consortium of representative governments, international financial institutions, United Nations agencies and regional blocs to support Nepal’s development activities. About 70 percent of Nepal’s development budget is financed by external assistance.

This is the second time that NDF is going to be held in Nepal. Earlier, the group known as Nepal Aid Group used to meet abroad every two years for the purpose.

At the pre-consultation meetings, experts took stock of the role played by private sector in the economic development of the country in the past; the efficacy of withdrawal of subsidies on agriculture sector; issues of women empowerment and so on.

Binod Bahadur Shrestha, president of Federation of Nepalese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI), said that there is a need to bring about change in the mindset of private sector as well in order to be able to extract benefit. He stressed the need for continuous dialogue between the government and private sector.

“The government policy should include ways to address the concerns of a huge number of people displaced by the conflict. If the government adopts business-as-usual approach, the agriculture sector will further decline,” said Khadga Prasad Sharama Oli, standing committee member of the UML and a former minister.

Keshab Badal, another UML leader who also heads its farmers’ wing, said that due to lack of proper land reforms and the inability of Nepalese farmers to compete with Indian farmers, who enjoy various state subsidies, are some of the reasons for non-improvement of this sector. “If the donor communities want to see poverty alleviation in Nepal, they should not withdraw subsidies,” he said.

“The recommendations made by the pre-consultation meeting will provide the government with the tools to present its strategies at the NDF,” said a senior official at the Finance Ministry.

At the last meeting of NDF, donors had pledged an assistance of US$ 500 million annually for the next five years primarily to finance poverty reduction programs.

But in the subsequent years due to growing insurgency, the country has not been able to desirably move towards alleviating poverty. As such, the overriding concern of the donors at the forthcoming NDF is likely to be the situation of conflict and how to address that before working to implement development programs.