Honorable Prof. Dr. Pushpa Raj Kandel, vice-chair of National Planning Commission

Honorable Forest Minister Bishnu Prasad Poudel, Finance Minister

Honorable KP Oli, member of National Planning Commission and all NPC members.

Provincial planning commission members and all officials

Honorable Secretary and Joint-secretaries and other respectable members who are present here today

I’m very much pleased. It’s a very much-awaited occasion despite difficulties. I would like to congratulate the government of Nepal through National Planning Commission for today’s event and launching this important report. As it was already mentioned by Dr. Oli, I would also like to mention that it is extremely important efforts deployed by the drafting team to make it happen. I’m pleased that Dr. Dinesh and his team and all the different milestones that had been the part of process for the last one year. It has been 30 years that Nobel laureate Amartya Sen and Mahbub ul Haq came up with idea—30 years of idea, 30 years of debate, 30 years of thinking and 30 years of challenging, also status quo and also the tiers of challenging constructively policies and the way of thinking. In addition to graduations, but it’s simply the idea how ordinary people can be supported in their choices, how to be and how to do things. It’s very simple idea and how that that be a conceptual framework that had been UNDP efforts for the last 30 years. And we hope will be continued to be over the next decades to come.

Nepal’s UNDP is also very pleased to be the part of this efforts for last 22 years. As I understand through six different projects, six different reports starting from 1998 basically on political economy, reorientation of policies around human development and administrative and fiscal decentralization and the strengthening of local governance as far as 2001, and then people’s responsive state institutions, social barriers to discrimination and strong local organization capacity and social capital back in 2004 and a 10-point agenda for federalism in 2009, and impartial dimension of productive demand of high inclusion basically how to catch up with the lagging regional set up and how to prioritize urban management and how to make urban-rural linkages in 2014.

Basically, all these different ideas have shaped development policies in Nepal and have given very consistent progress, policy ideas, policy measures and investments in Nepal human development. We are very happy that we, the UNDP, modestly could be the part of that development debate in Nepal for the last 22 years. This report, I wouldn’t go into details, I think Dr Oli and Dr Dilli mentioned about what it contains. It’s mostly about taking stocks of Nepal’s readiness to geological, human and economic exposures over the years to come. And also to see how potential export loss, erosion in concessional aids and reduction may or not may be in the short and medium run while graduating from current state is what Nepal will need to be put in place as a transitional strategy for this graduation to help minimization the risks.

So, I think even though very mildly the team had been able to look it through the COVID-19 impact, and I think we all need to keep that in mind, and  this because for the first time in 30 years progress that has been achieved in last 30 years in the sector of human development index may or probably likely to be negative and reverse not only in Nepal but also in the world because of Covid-19 crisis. So, this is why I think generation of evidence and disaggregated data, policy discussions, dialogue and research what National Planning Commission is doing extremely important in order to achieve not only human development targets but also the SDG targets and to leave no one behind. 

Before ending my small remarks, I would to touch upon something that Dr. Oli mentioned. It’s about the climate. I think yesterday, we all observed 5th years of Paris Agreement. We also heard how Nepal revised its climate targets and also took the commitment for net zero carbon emission by 2050 and how policies and measures will have to be readjusted to these new ambitions. Also, as we observe the 30th human development anniversaries, in very few days, UNDP also will be coming up with a new next global human development report. This new global human development report is examining for the first-time, relationship spanning over 3,000 years instead of planet shaping humans, how the humans are shaping the planet, the age of humans that we call the Anthropocene. This new report is looking how the humanity can navigate the new age and how it can unpack the relationship between the planet and where to go from here to transform pathways to human progress. This is why it’s important. I think this a very opportune movement for Nepal as coming to this graduation beyond productive transformation and prosperity. I think it is extremely important moment to connect these planetary boundaries as much as Nepal’s commitment towards Nepal’s zero emission ambition and to see what it matters when shaping policies going beyond graduation.

In that circumstances, all Nepal’s efforts including provincial and local governments are extremely important. Therefore, UNDP stands ready to partner with federal, provincial and local level all partners to make this policy measures practical and operational so that every ordinary person can really have the opportunity and have the freedom to decide who they want be, what they want to do and how they want to live. 

With this, I would to once again congratulate the entire team, the National Planning Commission, and all the other development stakeholders who were part of the steering committee. I invite the NPC to take this report to the local level and disseminate it and make it use by the students at the universities and those policy makers so that these recommendations can really shape the future of Nepal.

Thank you very much!

[Speech delivered by UNDP Resident Representative Ayshanie Medagangoda-Labe at the virtual launch of Nepal Human Development Report 2020 on December 13, 2020]