KATHMANDU: Nepal has been promoted to Medium Human Development Index from Less Human Development Index.
Finance Minister Bishnu Prasad Poudel through a virtual program made public the Nepal Human Development Report prepared by the National Planning Commission (NPC).
Nepal is ahead of some countries in South Asia in the Gender Development Index, Gender Inequality Index and Human Development Index.
Despite lagging behind in income criteria for upgrading, Nepal has met two essential criteria of human resource and economic risk. But some risks and challenges remain, the report said.
“Human development inequality exists between rural and urban areas and provinces,” the report added.
Most of the provinces are lagging behind the national average in the same criteria when comparing the provincial level on the basis of promotion criteria.
Despite the moderate impact on international aid measures in trade and development finance, including foreign direct investment, the upgrade is likely to have a negative impact in some areas.
Major structural and institutional barriers, policy gaps, access to health and education and quality, structural and location specific barriers and other risks are major challenges to sustainable human development and upliftment.
The report shows low entrepreneurial capacity, large infrastructure gap and inability to achieve demographic dividends.
The report points out that less positive change in the economy has hampered the capacity development of the productive base economy.
Similarly, there is inequality in ownership of means of production, access to property, access to opportunities and distribution benefits.
The report also shows that there are high risks in the labor market and employment sector.
Apart from this, the report has also pointed out the impact of COVID-19 on human development and upliftment.
The report, which is made public every two years, only includes data up to 2019. The report found that COVID-19 risked reversing human and economic gains.
“People at risk from inadequate health infrastructure, medical supply disruptions and other diseases are at greater risk,” the report said.
“Children from poor households are at higher risk for physical development and brain development.” The closure of schools across the country has hampered the education of millions of students.
The report states that short, medium to long-term relief, economic recovery and productive transformation are needed to solve various problems.
Similarly, multilateral financial institutions including the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank have been providing concessional loans on the basis of per capita national income and not on the basis of underdevelopment.
Although countries providing bilateral assistance use the Least Developed Standards to guide ODA distribution, they also assist in upgrading to meet specific challenges.
The report concludes that with some exports, competition risk will increase in the country’s industrialization.
Speaking on the occasion, Finance Minister Bishnu Poudel said that the government would accept the benefits of the report.
He said, “This will be important for the steps to be taken by the government for the development of Nepal and raising the level of human beings.” I would like to thank the team that prepared the report.
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