Interpreting poverty has always been guided by socio-political concerns. If one goes by numbers, even in the United States poverty has increased from 11.1 percent in 1973 (23 million people) to 13.2 percent in 2008 (39.8 million). In the UK, poverty line is set up at £235 per week but British pensioners suffer a worse poverty than Romanians. There is another side of the coin. Even the poorest pensioners in the UK are better off than those in many other countries. It is therefore, the perspective that makes people rich or poor. One could feel relatively better off if they thank for everything they have instead of worrying about what they do not have. But is this really how one should understand poverty correctly?
The ineffectiveness of poverty instruments in reducing income inequality in Nepal has been condemned by a vast majority of the people who at times even suspect that poverty instruments may have killed the poor and not poverty. The reason is largely due to the failure to redesign and localize poverty issues in line with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In the past, several attempts were made at the national, regional and global level to devise appropriate policy interventions for addressing poverty. But these policies lost their value because such interventions were not focused on poor beneficiaries and stressed traditional ways of efficiency analysis. In fact the policies lack the yardstick to rank project-specific interventions and their impact.
Nepal’s commitment to achieve MDGs has been reflected in the government’s Three-Year Interim Plan (TYIP, 2008-10) in which sectoral chapters of TYIP have been addressed from an MDG perspective. The mission of the ongoing second MDGs progress report 2010 is also to draft poverty MDGs and include human development in the framework for sectoral papers; capacity mapping exercise focusing local level implementation and needs assessment. These works are commendable, however, the gaps that had been identified at the regional level on South Asian poverty and the instruments recommended thereof have been totally ignored in Nepal’s country-specific poverty reduction initiatives. This paper intends to inform policymakers and development partners of the need to incorporate priority-based indicators of poverty alleviation in national plans before finalizing the progress report and needs assessment of the MDGs. Secondly, the objective of this article is to reveal how the South Asian Development Goals (SDGs) are disconnected with the MDGs?
The poverty instruments to reduce income inequality in Nepal has been ineffective and condemned by a vast majority of the people. The reason is largely due to the failure to redesign and localize poverty issues in line with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
At the 12th SAARC Summit in Islamabad in 2004, the Heads of States instructed the Independent South Asian Commission on Poverty Alleviation (ISACPA) to submit a comprehensive and realistic blueprint outlining SDGs for the next five years in areas of poverty alleviation, education, health, and environment giving due regard, among others, to suggestions made in the ISACPA report “Our Future Our Responsibility”. The 13th SAARC Summit in Bangladesh in 2005 adopted SDGs with 22 goals in 4 major areas namely: Livelihood, health, education and environment. While developing these goals, three key factors were taken into consideration – the specificities of South Asia, linkages with international goals as set out in the MDGs and the importance of focusing on process goals as much as outcome goals. No doubt the SDGs serve as a useful reference point to frame adequate policy responses. The question is unless these initiatives are reflected in the annual plan documents, it is not possible to develop an interface with national-level poverty reduction strategy paper (PRSP) and national development plans.
The SDGs for the period 2007 through 2012 are shown in the table above.
SAARC Development Goals (SDGs) 2007-2012
Livelihood SDGs
Goal 1 Eradication of hunger and poverty
Goal 2 Halve the proportion of people living in poverty by 2010
Goal 3 Ensure adequate nutrition and dietary improvement for poor
Goal 4 Ensure a robust pro-poor growth process
Goal 5 Strengthen connectivity of poorer regions and of poor as social groups
Goal 6 Reduce social and institutional vulnerabilities of the poor, women, and children
Goal 7 Ensure access to affordable justice
Goal 8 Ensure effective participation of poor and of women in anti-poverty policies and programs
Health SDGs
Goal 9 Maternal health
Goal 10 Child health
Goal 11 Affordable healthcare
Goal 12 Improved hygiene and public health
Education SDGs
Goal 13 Access to primary/community school for all children, both, boys and girls
Goal 14 Completion of primary education cycle
Goal 15 Universal functional literacy
Goal 16 Quality education at primary, secondary and vocational levels
Environment SDGs
Goal 17 Acceptable level of forest cover
Goal 18 Acceptable level of water and soil quality
Goal 19 Acceptable level of air quality
Goal 20 Conservation of bio-diversity
Goal 21 Wetland conservation
Goal 22 Ban on dumping of hazardous waste, including radio-active waste
As shown in the table, eight SDGs are related to livelihood, four to health, four to education and six to environment, which in turn, are designed to complement MDGs.
SAARC Secretariat and UNDP convened a Regional Brainstorm in Nepal in 2007, where elaboration of SDGs, its monitorable indicators, an appropriate and cost saving monitoring and evaluation mechanism werew discussed at length by national, regional and international experts. This meeting produced the report Taking SDGs Forward, which included, the present status of progress achieved in attainment of MDGs closely related with SDGs and gaps thereof; elaboration of SDGs, including indicators; institutional mechanism for monitoring and evaluation; and a section on the best practices. In view of the varying levels of achievements in the attainment of MDGs, SAARC leaders showed a collective will to go further and faster, beyond the MDG targets. Therefore, ISACPA submitted a comprehensive blueprint laying out SDGs for the period 2007-2012 in the areas of poverty alleviation, education, health and environment during the twelfth SAARC summit.
To achieve the SDGs by 2012, the report Taking SDGs Forward adopted 67 indicators for the 22 SDGs. It was decided that the national governments should annually send monitoring results based on these 67 indicators to SAARC Secretariat. As compiling and analyzing the data was not accomplished, no information was shared during the annual meeting of the SAARC Poverty Alleviation Ministers. Likewise, the directives of SAARC Heads of Government, the work completed by ISACPA and planning strategies prepared by respective countries were not coordinated. The fate of the intervention mechanisms, which was even endorsed at the highest political level, remains uncertain. Ironically, before going through the procedural formalities, A Compendium of Best Practices towards Attainment of the SAARC Development Goals (SDGs) was published.
It can be expected that if such diagnostic report is accommodated in country-specific planning documents, the sector-based cases doing well in the region can certainly provide opportunities for SAARC member countries to learn from good and innovative practices. Unfortunately, this has not yet happened. There is no reference of ISACPA’s work in Nepal’s TYIP. Millions of dollars was spent on field visits, meetings and reproduction of the report that benefited individuals and not the country. The Second Meeting of Secretaries dealing with Poverty Alleviation (Maldives, 26 May 2008) praised ISACPA for successfully fulfilling its mandate emanated from the higher bodies of SAARC. And this is the story so far.
bishwambher@yahoo.com
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