Mr. Chairman,
Excellencies,
Distinguished Delegates,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is indeed a great pleasure for me to attend this 31st Session of IFAD Governing Council and to speak in this February forum for discussing the challenges and opportunities in our joint effort of enabling the rural poor people to overcome their poverty.

Nepal is currently at the crossroads where we find ourselves engaged in the task of political and socio-economic transformation of Nepal to making it more democratic, inclusive, prosperous and just. In the near future we are holding a Constituent Assembly Election to build a constitution that is made by the people and for the people of Nepal. In this process, we are mainstreaming the excluded and the poor so that they can have empowered access to decision making and resource and benefit-sharing.

Poverty alleviation has been a long-standing agenda in the Nepalese political and socio-economic spheres. We have made considerable progress towards that direction but since about one-third of the Nepalese population is still below the poverty line there is yet so much to be done. Similar to any other developing nation, poverty in Nepal is mainly agrarian and rural in nature. As it still employs 65% of the Nepalese population, we believe it holds the key to rapid and massive poverty alleviation. Our national policies and perspective plans are all aligned to create an environment for long-term investments in this sector and to build institutional capacity for empowering rural poor people with careful consideration of the special needs of women and socio-politically and geographically marginalized communities. In this regard, it is also encouraging to witness the renewal of interest amongst the development partners towards this sector as evidenced by the World Bank’s World Development Report 2008: Agriculture Development.

In recent times, agriculture sector has been treading on uncertain areas and debatable areas have been thrust upon it. We have recently witnessed the agriculture sector succumbing to the devastating effects of highly pathogenic Trans-boundary diseases such as Avian Influenza.

Nepal has been fortunate enough so far not to be affected by the AI, but with such cases already detected in its neighbouring countries, we have been put to high alert. We need to act together soon.

I sincerely believe that an integrated and intensive assistance from the donor communities at national and regional levels can prevent and contain the associated negative effects from such trans-boundary diseases.

The world currently is witnessing a pace of unprecedented climate change. That has been induced in much part by human activities. This rapid pace of climate change could potentially lead to more frequent and fierce heavy rainfall and drought leading to dire consequences in the agricultural sector. The situation is even more precarious especially to the most vulnerable nations, such as Nepal, and their people.

We need to act quickly and learn to adapt even quicker to mitigate such effects.

Presently, we have been witnessing rising commodity prices. When the poor are the net food buyers, this trend will only hurt them further.

However, if we could somehow extend supports to transform them into food producers and enhance their entitlement over it so that they might as well be able to benefit from the rising food prices.

The other issue that I would like to touch upon today is the rising demands for bio-fuels in response to the increasing price of fossil fuels and the concerns for environment sustenance.

The speedily increasing demands for bio-fuels can have two immediate and most-likely implications for us. It can either create income-generation opportunities if farmers can exploit that market profitably or it can challenge food security situations if it leads to considerable declines in food availability. All of us need to work together to see more of the first and less of the second.

It is heartening indeed to acknowledge that three round table meetings are being held on topics related to climate change, biofuels, and rising agricultural commodity prices. I sincerely hope that the results of the meetings will be successful in showing us ways to create opportunities for the poor from the situations that I have just momentarily touched upon.

Mr. Chairman, please let me take this opportunity to thank IFAD and other development partners for supporting the development works in Nepal and we look forward to receiving continued assistance from the international community in this endeavour.

In conclusion, we look forward to a successful outcome of this session of the Governing Council and hope it would guide us all on sustainable agricultural rural development in the coming years.

Thank you for your kind attention.