Nepal | March 16, 2018
Nepal | March 16, 2018
Illustration: Ratna Sagar Shrestha/THT
KATHMANDU: The Committee for Development Policy (CDP), subsidiary advisory body of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), has withheld Nepal’s graduation from Least Developed Countries following the latter’s request for the same.
Earlier, Nepal government had requested CDP to provide additional time to Nepal to graduate to the league of developing countries.
Following discussions with a wide range of stakeholders, including private sector, academicians, think-tanks, civil society organisations and non-governmental organisations, the National Planning Commission (NPC) had informed Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli about the position of the country in the graduation process.
According to the United Nations, LDCs are assessed under three achievement criteria — health and education targets, economic vulnerability and gross national income per capita. Moreover, countries must meet two of the three criteria at two consecutive triennial reviews of the CDP to be considered for graduation.
Nepal meets the criteria to graduate to the league of developing countries in two major indices — human asset index (HAI) and economic vulnerability index (EVI), according to NPC officials.
In its latest review, the CDP said that Nepal and Timor-Leste despite meeting the criteria were not recommended for graduation, due to economic and political challenges.
The CDP said two more countries, Vanuatu and Angola, are scheduled for graduation over the next three years.
According to officials, decision will be deferred to the next CDP triennial review in 2021 as Nepal aims to graduate to the league of developing nations by 2022.
According to the UN Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, there are 47 LDCs globally and 13 are from the Asia-Pacific region.
In the meantime, Bangladesh, Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Myanmar have met the graduation criteria for the first time but would need to do so for a second time to be eligible for consideration.
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