Stakeholders concerned about rising income gap
KATHMANDU, OCT 24 -
Stakeholders have expressed concern about increasing income inequality despite the the achievements in the Millennium Development Goals.
Marginalised people are being deprived from quality education and health services, they said.
Interim Election Government Chairman Khil Raj Regmi underscored the need for bringing deprived and marginalised communities to mainstream to minimise the gap between the rich and poor. He said implementation of integrated programmes would help poverty alleviation.
Introduction of livelihood programmes aimed at making the rural people self reliant in the long run could help reduce poverty more effectively, Regmi said at a programme organised by the Poverty Alleviation Fund (PAF), an autonomous government body, here on Wednesday.
The MDG Progress Report 2013 published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has also pointed out that Nepal is likely to achieve most of its MDG targets despite the prolonged political instability. “The targets for poverty reduction, maternal mortality, and boys and girls enrolment in primary education are either achieved or likely to be achieved,” read the report.
Nepal has accorded high priority to poverty alleviation programmes for the last one and half decades. Over the period, the country has been able to reduce absolute poverty to 23.8 percent from around 42 percent.
However, the ineffectiveness of the poverty alleviation programmes has benefited more to the rich or medium class people. This has raised a threat of increasing social conflict through widening gap between the haves and the have-nots.
Chief Secretary Leela Mani Paudyal said there is a need for launching new programmes aimed at reducing the social disparity and increasing the access of not only the rural but also the urban poor people to social services. “Urban poor who are being ignored in government policies are even more vulnerable due to issues related to the high cost of living, among others,” he added.
Paudyal also stressed on the need for managing alternative provisions for the people who are depending solely on natural resources for their living. “Similarly, there is a growing challenge to reinstate the people who are being displaced from their traditional occupation,” he said.
PAF Vice-chairman Yuva Raj Pandey said they would focus on improving effectiveness of their programmes by mobilising local community people to increase the access of the poor to education and health facility, among others.
Meanwhile, PAF has launched E-Chautari, a portal that facilitates transparency in the activities related to poverty alleviation by increasing access of the general people to the PAF programmes. According to the organisation, it also entertains complaints from local people.
Source: The Kathmandu Post
