Mr. Chairperson,
The President of IFAD,
Distinguished Governors,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is my privilege to have the opportunity to address this august forum today and share views of my delegation on the issue of rural poverty, agricultural livelihood and employment.

The world is more prosperous today than it was few decades ago; and is now able to offer enough for a better living to all its human inhabitants in aggregate terms. This notwithstanding, we continue to be reminded of the faces of hundreds of millions of people who do not have adequate livelihoods to be able to access the most basic means of survival. And with business as usual, there is little likelihood of achieving the MDG concerning the poverty and hunger set for 2015.

Opportunities for employment, livelihood security and poverty reduction exist within agriculture through increased farm incomes from limited lands. Given that the cultivation frontiers are closing and yield gaps narrowing, the potential could be harnessed through a major technological breakthrough resulting in another Green Revolution. But for this to be much more successful it has to be evenly distributed and equitably beneficial. The access of developing countries to new technologies needs to be enhanced. In order for them to leapfrog into the new production frontiers, their own research capabilities of adoption and application need to be strengthened.

Also required is the improvement in access to wider markets. This is where cooperation and collaboration at multilateral scale becomes important. The weaker population groups around the world must be empowered to benefit visibly from the invisible hands of the market forces. Developing country governments must be supported by sincere efforts of the developed countries, aid agencies and international organizations to this end.

Mr. Chairperson, 

Allow me to briefly highlight the key development agenda that we, in Nepal, have adopted to fight the problem of poverty and food insecurity.

Agriculture remains the most important sector for the people and economy of Nepal. Efforts so far have not been able to achieve considerable rise in its productivity. The small landholding size in a low productivity agriculture means that average household income is low. Moreover, owing to the agro-climatic diversity and variation in resource endowment across regions, there is pronounced spatial mismatch between production and requirement. The lack of economic access to food and other products by the poor people has been exacerbated by the weak internal circulation system that has failed to ensure the physical access in a timely and reliable manner.

Poverty alleviation has been the single most important goal of development efforts over the last decade. Agriculture was set to focus on contributing to achieving high and sustainable economic growth and poverty. Increasing agricultural productivity through the provision of integrated packages of inputs and services was adopted as the instrument to achieve this.

Impressive achievements were made in poverty reduction during last decade. But the country, at the same time, suffered from a prolonged internal conflict which inflicted huge socio-economic costs and greatly thwarted the development process. It is, however, a matter of great delight that a peace agreement has been forged between the conflicting parties late last year, and consequently, the country is now set for a sustained peace with the new interim constitution and parliament wherein the conflicting parties have been inclusively represented. The heightened aspirations of people for peace dividend in the new found democracy must be addressed immediately if peace and democracy are to sustain.

In this backdrop, Nepal is currently in process of launching a Three Year Plan with the continuation of previous goals of poverty alleviation but with the major thrust on rural reconstruction, and rehabilitation of rural livelihood and infrastructures that lay the foundation for livelihood opportunities. It is in this perspective that we are pleased to applaud IFAD for choosing the theme of rural employment and livelihoods for this years Governing Council. In our view, focus on agriculture alone would not be enough for productive rural employment. It needs to be extended to the off-farm sector as well. Emphasis must be laid on enhancement of farm off-farm linkages.

I would like to take this opportunity to mention that the Government of Nepal and IFAD have agreed recently on a new Country strategic Opportunities Programme. At this critical juncture of conflict ridden economy, our capacity to deal effectively with indebtedness and borrow new loans are prohibitively low. In view of this, we strongly urge IFAD to consider debt relief schemes as well as grant aid modes of investment in forthcoming programmes for Nepal and other countries facing similar problems.

I would like to reassure Nepal’s full commitment to collaborate with IFAD in its own capacity and potentials.

Let me conclude with the best wishes for the grand success of this Session.

Thank you all for your kind attention.

Ganesh Kumar K.C.
Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, Government of Nepal