South Asia Watch on Trade, Economics and
Environment (SAWTEE) organized a High-level Dialogue on “Post-2015 Development
Agenda and 18th SAARC Summit: Nepal’s perspectives”in
Kathmandu on 14 December 2014. The dialogue was organized on the backdrop of
the recent SAARC Summit and the upcoming Ministerial Meeting of the
Asia-Pacific Least Developed Countries (LDCs) on graduation. The objective of
the programme was to discuss the importance of post-2015 development agenda,
its possible inter-linkages and complementarities with the issues identified in
the SAARC Summit and possible challenges for implementation in Nepal. The
programme was attended by 60 participants representing high-level policy experts,
government officials, diplomats, private sector and the media.
Opening the
session, Dr. Hiramani Ghimire, Executive Director, SAWTEE briefed upon the
objectives of the session and provided few pointers towards the issues to be
discussed later. Recognizing the importance of its focus on economic growth, he
mentioned that the process of formation of the upcoming Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs) has been highly participatory. He also highlighted the importance
of policy space provided by the upcoming SDGs which can be tailored according
to the country specific needs. Knowing that Goal 8 of the MDGs on international
cooperation has been the hardest of the goals to achieve, he mentioned that
Goal 17 of the upcoming SDGs (which is similar to Goal 8 of MDG) will be
equally hard to achieve, especially considering current the global economic
climate.
Mr. Deependra
Bahadur Kshetry, Former Vice Chairman of the National Planning Commission
pointed out that despite successes in some areas, Nepal was not able to meet
many targets under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Going forward, he
noted, completion of these goals will be a major challenge for Nepal. He also
identified the need for recognizing global, regional and national contexts
while designing and implementing the SDGs. At global level, he pointed out the
issues of climate change, disaster management, international labour mobility,
foreign aid mobilization and technology transfer as key issues to be considered
with regards to the SDGs. At regional level, he identified issues like the lack
of present success of SAARC, the need for cooperation at secretarial level,
regional trade and economic imbalances and political skirmish, non-tariff
barriers, and access and benefit sharing mechanism in the shared natural
resources as important determinants for success of SDGs for Nepal. Finally at
national level, he recognized lack of success in gender related MDGs, and
pointed out the need to incorporate youth, economic growth, internal migration
and high-quality FDI in the discussion related to the SDGs.
Dr. Dinesh
Bhattarai, Foreign Affairs Advisor to the Prime Minister of Nepal, echoed the
words of United Nations (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and mentioned that
there is a “development emergency” among the LDCs. He mentioned the need to
revise the definition of poverty to include issues of psychological and
behavioural aspects of poverty to make it more scientific. He also reminded the
participants about the poor implementation mechanism among the LDCs and
highlighted the importance of prioritizing among various goals to achieve
credible results. Keeping in mind the peculiarities of the mountainous and low
lying countries, he urged the UN to come up with a different plan for such
countries. He also echoed the sentiments of earlier speakers on the need for
environmental issues, free trade, and migration (including migrant workers’
safety, security and dignity) to be included in the upcoming SDGs.
Prof. Dr. Govind
Raj Pokhrel, Vice Chairman of the National Planning Commission of Nepal
mentioned that the upcoming SDGs has three key areas of focus viz. economic,
social and environmental dimensions of development. He also mentioned that continuing
with the unfinished tasks of the MDGs was another important component of the
SDGs. Reminding the audience that there were 17 Goals and 169 targets under the
SDGs, he stated the need for prioritization among the goals marking some as
necessary and some as aspirational. He pointed out that while poverty has
fallen in Nepal, vulnerability among poor has risen considerably. Consequently,
issues like disparity, inequality in various forms (like gender, income, and
caste) are important agendas in South Asia. Besides inequality, he noted,
jobless growth and lack of population planning as other key issues which have
to be considered by the policy makers. Additionally, in order to finance the
development, he pointed out the need for innovative forms of internal financing
rather than relying on international partners. Therefore, he stressed on
finding new ways of incorporating the private sector in the development process.
He also floated the idea of transforming Nepal into a zero-carbon economy.
Mr. Gyan Chandra
Acharya, Under-Secretary General and High Representative for the LDCs, Landlocked
Least Developed Countries (LLDCs), and Small Islands Developing States (SIDs),
United Nations, gave a keynote to address the dialogue. He urged the LDCs to be
more proactive in formulating the multilateral development programmes so their
needs can be better reflected in the agenda. He mentioned that the UN provides
the role of facilitator in the development process acting as a technical
advisor carrying out fundamental analysis and ultimately, it is the individual
countries themselves who are responsible for carrying out the development
process. He mentioned that the upcoming SDGs should be ambitious, and
transformative in nature. He reminded the audience of the importance of keeping
people, justice, equity and basic services at the centre of the development
process for people to lead “lives with dignity”. He also informed the audience
of the increased involvement of the UN at regional levels.
Hon. Mr.
Mahendra Bahadur Pandey, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Government of Nepal
mentioned that the 18th SAARC Summit has been successful in
deepening the cooperation between the SAARC countries. He mentioned that the
regional cooperation in trade, investment, energy, and connectivity will be
crucial in transforming the economics of the region and highlighted that SAARC
Motor Vehicles Agreement and Railway Agreement that have come out of the most
recent summit will be crucial in this process. He also underlined the need for
regional effort in achieving the targets related to SDGs and suggested that the
new development agenda will be helpful in Nepal’s graduation from LDC. Hon.
Minister also stressed on the importance of addressing issues of poverty and
risk and vulnerability arising out of climate change.
Closing the
session, Dr. Posh Raj Pandey, Executive Chairman, SAWTEE and the chair of the
dialogue emphasized the need for including issues related to full and
meaningful employment, and gender equality in the upcoming SDGs. More importantly,
he pointed out that the importance of technology has been underestimated in the
dialogue (including the dialogue on formulation SDGs). He stated that
technology leads to better, faster and smarter activities which can play
transformative role in the development process and urged for the inclusion of
technology in upcoming developmental dialogues.
Programme Agenda
List of Participants
Media Coverage
