Nepal
NBPAL
Nepal's Voluntary National Review (VNR) statement to be presented
by Honorable Dr. Min Bahadur Shrestha, Vice Chairman, National
Planning Commission and the Head of Nepali Delegation to the HighLevel
Political Forum
on Sustainable Development (HLPF)
17 July 2017, New York
Please check against delivery.
Mr. President,
Let me first commend your leadership of ECOSOC in convening the High
Level Political Forum this year as well as for the meticulous preparation for
Voluntary National Review presentations.
As a land-locked, mountainous and least developed country emerging from
conflict, and from the devastating earthquakes, Nepal understands that its
journey towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals is full of
challenges.
Yet, we in Nepal are committed not to be left behind in this journey. That
brings us here to share our unique experience, including successes,
challenges and lessons learned, with a view to accelerate the implementation
of the 2030 Agenda in the country.
On behalf of the Government of Nepal, I have the honour to present Nepal's
VNR today.
Nepal's Voluntary National Review comes through a rigorous consultation
process. Over a period of six months. Government institutions, national
1
I
stakeholders including the private sector, academia and civil society were
involved in the preparation of the national report.
Mr. President,
In past few decades, our development endeavor has yielded some good
progress in socio-economic front. The achievements in the edueation and
health sectors, in particular, have been impressive.
Similarly, the character of slow pace of growth has begun to see a positive
change.
After a gap of several years, the country's economy is expected to grow by
7 percent in Fiscal Year 2016-17. This could mark the beginning of a key
turnaround for Nepal.
i
Building on the achievements so far, Nepal desires to swiftly complete the
unfinished agenda of the MDGs, and step up its efforts towards realizing the
SDGs. This objective perfectly fits into Nepal's aspiration become a middle
income country by 2030.
j
However, the road is full of multiple constraints- the constraints of resource,
capacity, and technology. We are yet to attain the level of meeting required
income criterion for the graduation.
The need is to forge real and meaningful partnership among all stakeholders
to achieve the SDGs. A partnership that not only deliberates, but also
delivers.
Our pursuit of development through the SDGs framework is testified by the
fact that Nepal was among the first few countries to produce a preliminary
SDGs Report in 2015, even before the formal adoption of the 2030 Agenda.
2
In collaboration with key development stakeholders, Nepal has set the
country-specific SDG-related targets to be achieved by 2030. We have
mainstreamed the 2030 Agenda into our national plans and policies. The 14*
periodic plan, the national budget, and other sectoral plans have been closely
aligned with the SDGs.
The 17 SDGs have been mapped into the five strategies of the 14*
development plan. They are infrastructure development, economic
prosperity, social development, governance and crosscutting issues. A total
of 1,219 programs and projects are being implemented in the current fiscal
year.
SDG codes have been assigned to all these annual programs in the national
budget. Expenditure tracking methods have also been introduced.
We have put into implementation several programs aligning with those goals
and targets; and have put concerted efforts to bring results out of them. Some
of them have started yielding promising results.
Mr. President,
The Constitution of Nepal promulgated by the widely representative elected
Constituent Assembly in 2015 is an embodiment of inclusive, participatory
and rights-based development. It serves as the guiding light for development
policies, plans and programs of the country.
The directive principles, policies and responsibilities of the state enshrined
in the Constitution include all the three dimensions of SDGs - Social,
Economic and Environmental.
3
Nepal's achievements in gender equality have been inspiring. The
Constitution guarantees at least one-third representation of women in the
Federal Parliament as well as the Provincial Assemblies.
The recent elections to the local bodies has ensured close to a half of
women's participation. Either Speaker or Deputy Speaker of both the houses
of parliament must be a woman. The President and Vice-President of the
country should represent different sex or community. Currently we have 30%
of women's representation in the Parliament.
We achieved the goal of gender and child health related MDGs reflected in
gender parity in schooling, greater share of women in civil service and in the
ownership of properties. By 2030, we expect that women in eivil service and
public decision-making positions will increase by four-folds.
i
Nepal has halved extreme poverty in the past 15 years, and is on track to
confine it to less than 5 percent by 2030. We aspire to reduce
undernourishment to 3 percent and underweight in children less than five
years of age to 5 percent.
i
Our target is to reduce the maternal mortality rate to less than 70 per 100,000
live births. Other targets include virtual elimination of the prevalence of HIV,
TB, Malaria, and other tropical and water borne diseases.
Similarly, the commitment and efforts of Nepal to create gender parity at all
levels of education have been largely successful. Our goal is to eliminate the
wage discrimination, sexual violence and all harmful social practices, such
as child marriage.
Nepal targets to increase the road density to 1.5 km per square km and paved
road density to 0.25 km per square km. We wil l connect all municipalities
and village councils to the national road network.
4
Our target is to increase the share of employment by the industrial sector to
25 percent, with the manufacturing sub-sector itself providing 13 percent of
the employment opportunities.
As envisioned by the SDGs, Nepal anticipates that all stakeholders wil l walk
in tandem throughout the implementation phase by adhering in true spirit the
notion of resource mobilization and capacity building as shared
responsibility and accountability.
Mr. President,
We have accorded high priority to the implementation of SDGs.
Three high-level committees have been formed to help implement them. At
the apex is the Steering Committee chaired by the Prime Minister himself
which demonstrates the highest political commitment.
A Coordination Committee chaired by the Vice Chairman of the National
Planning Commission (NPC) and nine Thematic Committees headed by the
Members of the Planning Commission are inclusive in terms of
representation of the public and private sectors, as well as civil society and
other national stakeholders.
Effective financing strategies become crucial for Nepal to achieve the 2030
goals. The Constitution of Nepal has envisioned complementary
mobilization of resources from public, private and cooperative sectors for
financing the socio-economic development efforts.
We have witnessed a sound progress in Nepal's revenue mobilization in
recent times. Despite this, it is vulnerable to likely swings in the large
volumes of inward remittances, which bolster import-based taxation. The
aim is to increase the share of revenue from about 22 percent of GDP today
5
to 30 per cent by 2030. Domestic expenditures financed by revenue are
estimated to reach 80 percent. In order to meet the private sector investmentfinancing
gap, foreign direct investment is expected to increase to 20 percent
of GDP by 2030, from less than 3 percent in 2015.
The Government is preparing a document Envisioning Nepal 2030. The 2015
SDGs Preliminary Report is being upgraded to a Base Line Report, and at
the same time, the investment requirements to achieve SDGs and
implementation strategies are being finalized.
Mr. President,
Let me now briefly highlight the challenges before us.
The SDGs are interlinked, indivisible, and ambitious and thus, pose major
implementation challenges for low-income countries like Nepal.
As the country embarks on implementing a new federal structure of
governance, a prominent challenge will be to quickly mainstream SDGs into
the provincial and local level planning and budgeting systems. Inadequate
database and lack of disaggregated data by sex, age, social groups, disability
status, geography, income and sub-national level wil l hinder the monitoring
of progress.
Apart from the challenges related to the realignment of policies, financing
challenges wil l loom large. Triggering and sustaining job-creating economic
growth, enhancing the quality of social service provisioning and ensuring
adequate investment to reduce the risks from disasters will be a major hurdle
for Nepal to successfully implement the SDGs.
The positive lessons learned from the MDG-era would be invaluable for
Nepal as it embarks on an ambitious journey ahead. The coordinated resource
mobilization mechanism has helped us produce impressive results in health,
6
education, water and sanitation sectors. While the triangular partnership
between the government, private sector and development partners has proved
effective in some other fronts. This needs to be augmented significantly i f
Nepal is to spur reforms that attract substantial private capital and
entrepreneurship.
Before I conclude, I would like to take a balcony view of the global strides
towards the 2030 agenda. Although the perceived success of MDGs did
provide us the ground for elevating social, economic and environmental
dimensions into a single broader goal -namely, the SDGs - achieving this is
not easy.
We must realize that SDGs are combinations of extraordinary ambition that
requires consistent political commitment and the ability to mobilize political
and economic actors and the resources.
There is a need of installing a strong meehanism to oversee the progress at
international and intergovernmental level, and further strengthen the current
review and follow-up mechanism. In this regard, we believe a comprehensive
matrix would be instrumental to review progress on all the Goals and targets
with a view to facilitating feedback and corrective measures.
Mobilization of political will at national level, forging strong partnership at
regional and international levels would be crucial for achieving SDGs.
I
It is an ambitious and arduous journey. However, it is a journey worth
pursuing. Joined together, this journey wil l lead us to the goal that we all
aspired for.
I thank you all.
7
Nepal's Voluntary National Review (VNR) statement to be presented
by Honorable Dr. Min Bahadur Shrestha, Vice Chairman, National
Planning Commission and the Head of Nepali Delegation to the HighLevel
Political Forum
on Sustainable Development (HLPF)
17 July 2017, New York
Please check against delivery.
Mr. President,
Let me first commend your leadership of ECOSOC in convening the High
Level Political Forum this year as well as for the meticulous preparation for
Voluntary National Review presentations.
As a land-locked, mountainous and least developed country emerging from
conflict, and from the devastating earthquakes, Nepal understands that its
journey towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals is full of
challenges.
Yet, we in Nepal are committed not to be left behind in this journey. That
brings us here to share our unique experience, including successes,
challenges and lessons learned, with a view to accelerate the implementation
of the 2030 Agenda in the country.
On behalf of the Government of Nepal, I have the honour to present Nepal's
VNR today.
Nepal's Voluntary National Review comes through a rigorous consultation
process. Over a period of six months. Government institutions, national
1
I
stakeholders including the private sector, academia and civil society were
involved in the preparation of the national report.
Mr. President,
In past few decades, our development endeavor has yielded some good
progress in socio-economic front. The achievements in the edueation and
health sectors, in particular, have been impressive.
Similarly, the character of slow pace of growth has begun to see a positive
change.
After a gap of several years, the country's economy is expected to grow by
7 percent in Fiscal Year 2016-17. This could mark the beginning of a key
turnaround for Nepal.
i
Building on the achievements so far, Nepal desires to swiftly complete the
unfinished agenda of the MDGs, and step up its efforts towards realizing the
SDGs. This objective perfectly fits into Nepal's aspiration become a middle
income country by 2030.
j
However, the road is full of multiple constraints- the constraints of resource,
capacity, and technology. We are yet to attain the level of meeting required
income criterion for the graduation.
The need is to forge real and meaningful partnership among all stakeholders
to achieve the SDGs. A partnership that not only deliberates, but also
delivers.
Our pursuit of development through the SDGs framework is testified by the
fact that Nepal was among the first few countries to produce a preliminary
SDGs Report in 2015, even before the formal adoption of the 2030 Agenda.
2
In collaboration with key development stakeholders, Nepal has set the
country-specific SDG-related targets to be achieved by 2030. We have
mainstreamed the 2030 Agenda into our national plans and policies. The 14*
periodic plan, the national budget, and other sectoral plans have been closely
aligned with the SDGs.
The 17 SDGs have been mapped into the five strategies of the 14*
development plan. They are infrastructure development, economic
prosperity, social development, governance and crosscutting issues. A total
of 1,219 programs and projects are being implemented in the current fiscal
year.
SDG codes have been assigned to all these annual programs in the national
budget. Expenditure tracking methods have also been introduced.
We have put into implementation several programs aligning with those goals
and targets; and have put concerted efforts to bring results out of them. Some
of them have started yielding promising results.
Mr. President,
The Constitution of Nepal promulgated by the widely representative elected
Constituent Assembly in 2015 is an embodiment of inclusive, participatory
and rights-based development. It serves as the guiding light for development
policies, plans and programs of the country.
The directive principles, policies and responsibilities of the state enshrined
in the Constitution include all the three dimensions of SDGs - Social,
Economic and Environmental.
3
Nepal's achievements in gender equality have been inspiring. The
Constitution guarantees at least one-third representation of women in the
Federal Parliament as well as the Provincial Assemblies.
The recent elections to the local bodies has ensured close to a half of
women's participation. Either Speaker or Deputy Speaker of both the houses
of parliament must be a woman. The President and Vice-President of the
country should represent different sex or community. Currently we have 30%
of women's representation in the Parliament.
We achieved the goal of gender and child health related MDGs reflected in
gender parity in schooling, greater share of women in civil service and in the
ownership of properties. By 2030, we expect that women in eivil service and
public decision-making positions will increase by four-folds.
i
Nepal has halved extreme poverty in the past 15 years, and is on track to
confine it to less than 5 percent by 2030. We aspire to reduce
undernourishment to 3 percent and underweight in children less than five
years of age to 5 percent.
i
Our target is to reduce the maternal mortality rate to less than 70 per 100,000
live births. Other targets include virtual elimination of the prevalence of HIV,
TB, Malaria, and other tropical and water borne diseases.
Similarly, the commitment and efforts of Nepal to create gender parity at all
levels of education have been largely successful. Our goal is to eliminate the
wage discrimination, sexual violence and all harmful social practices, such
as child marriage.
Nepal targets to increase the road density to 1.5 km per square km and paved
road density to 0.25 km per square km. We wil l connect all municipalities
and village councils to the national road network.
4
Our target is to increase the share of employment by the industrial sector to
25 percent, with the manufacturing sub-sector itself providing 13 percent of
the employment opportunities.
As envisioned by the SDGs, Nepal anticipates that all stakeholders wil l walk
in tandem throughout the implementation phase by adhering in true spirit the
notion of resource mobilization and capacity building as shared
responsibility and accountability.
Mr. President,
We have accorded high priority to the implementation of SDGs.
Three high-level committees have been formed to help implement them. At
the apex is the Steering Committee chaired by the Prime Minister himself
which demonstrates the highest political commitment.
A Coordination Committee chaired by the Vice Chairman of the National
Planning Commission (NPC) and nine Thematic Committees headed by the
Members of the Planning Commission are inclusive in terms of
representation of the public and private sectors, as well as civil society and
other national stakeholders.
Effective financing strategies become crucial for Nepal to achieve the 2030
goals. The Constitution of Nepal has envisioned complementary
mobilization of resources from public, private and cooperative sectors for
financing the socio-economic development efforts.
We have witnessed a sound progress in Nepal's revenue mobilization in
recent times. Despite this, it is vulnerable to likely swings in the large
volumes of inward remittances, which bolster import-based taxation. The
aim is to increase the share of revenue from about 22 percent of GDP today
5
to 30 per cent by 2030. Domestic expenditures financed by revenue are
estimated to reach 80 percent. In order to meet the private sector investmentfinancing
gap, foreign direct investment is expected to increase to 20 percent
of GDP by 2030, from less than 3 percent in 2015.
The Government is preparing a document Envisioning Nepal 2030. The 2015
SDGs Preliminary Report is being upgraded to a Base Line Report, and at
the same time, the investment requirements to achieve SDGs and
implementation strategies are being finalized.
Mr. President,
Let me now briefly highlight the challenges before us.
The SDGs are interlinked, indivisible, and ambitious and thus, pose major
implementation challenges for low-income countries like Nepal.
As the country embarks on implementing a new federal structure of
governance, a prominent challenge will be to quickly mainstream SDGs into
the provincial and local level planning and budgeting systems. Inadequate
database and lack of disaggregated data by sex, age, social groups, disability
status, geography, income and sub-national level wil l hinder the monitoring
of progress.
Apart from the challenges related to the realignment of policies, financing
challenges wil l loom large. Triggering and sustaining job-creating economic
growth, enhancing the quality of social service provisioning and ensuring
adequate investment to reduce the risks from disasters will be a major hurdle
for Nepal to successfully implement the SDGs.
The positive lessons learned from the MDG-era would be invaluable for
Nepal as it embarks on an ambitious journey ahead. The coordinated resource
mobilization mechanism has helped us produce impressive results in health,
6
education, water and sanitation sectors. While the triangular partnership
between the government, private sector and development partners has proved
effective in some other fronts. This needs to be augmented significantly i f
Nepal is to spur reforms that attract substantial private capital and
entrepreneurship.
Before I conclude, I would like to take a balcony view of the global strides
towards the 2030 agenda. Although the perceived success of MDGs did
provide us the ground for elevating social, economic and environmental
dimensions into a single broader goal -namely, the SDGs - achieving this is
not easy.
We must realize that SDGs are combinations of extraordinary ambition that
requires consistent political commitment and the ability to mobilize political
and economic actors and the resources.
There is a need of installing a strong meehanism to oversee the progress at
international and intergovernmental level, and further strengthen the current
review and follow-up mechanism. In this regard, we believe a comprehensive
matrix would be instrumental to review progress on all the Goals and targets
with a view to facilitating feedback and corrective measures.
Mobilization of political will at national level, forging strong partnership at
regional and international levels would be crucial for achieving SDGs.
I
It is an ambitious and arduous journey. However, it is a journey worth
pursuing. Joined together, this journey wil l lead us to the goal that we all
aspired for.
I thank you all.
7
Stakeholders