The progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Nepal is a success story. The country has made remarkable progress over the past 12 years. Nepal is likely to achieve many of the MDGs, such as reducing the proportion of people below the national poverty line; it is likely to achieve near 100 percent enrolment in primary education; it has received international recognition for being on-track towards achieving the goal related to improving maternal health; and it has has reduced child mortality and is likely to meet the MDG target for people with access to improved drinking water facilities. But there is still some way to go.
Some of the MDG targets will be difficult to achieve in the remaining time, like providing full and productive employment. Hunger has not been reduced as much as targeted; in particular, too many children have stunted growth and are under-weight. Only just over one out of three births are attended by a skilled attendant and access to services remains a challenge for many. The goals on the environment have also not been achieved. And Nepal risks not meeting the goals on gender equality and women’s empowerment if the proportion of seats held by women in the erstwhile Constituent Assembly is reduced for the next elections.
Violence against Women and Girls needs to be appropriately addressed. Most significantly, the widening gap between geographical locations and social groups is a cause for worry.
The poverty level of the Far West region is more than double that of the Eastern region of Nepal.
Dalits have almost four times the poverty level of Brahmins. Similar situations exist for other MDGs. We need to make extra efforts to ensure that progress is equitably distributed in order to reduce the differences between geographical locations and social groups.
The Government of Nepal’s continued commitment to MDGs has been remarkable. One of the areas where Nepal was not likely to meet the MDGs was sanitation.
Recent surveys show impressive progress on access to sanitation, yet one third of people in Nepal still do not have access to sanitation facilities. The drive in achieving sanitation targets is evolving into a social movement. So far, seven districts have declared Open Defecation Free Zones, where every household and every school has a toilet. It shows what can be achieved when all actors join hands. The Prime Minister, together with the UN, launched the MDG Acceleration Framework in January 2013 to speed up progress. It outlines concrete actions to ensure 80 percent sanitation coverage by 2015 as envisioned in Nepal’s Sanitation and Hygiene Master Plan 2011 Now, we have 1,000 days to close the gaps that remain for the MDGs in Nepal—1,000 days to accelerate action. The UN Country Team in Nepal will continue its work with the government and other partners to step-up collective efforts. Together, we need to re-energise the movement to free people from extreme poverty and address other critical human development issues.