Nepal: Fight Poverty to Eliminate Terrorism

The root causes of the internal conflicts and terrorism are deprivation, discrimination and the resulting poverty. Terrorism will only be effectively tackled when its root-cause, poverty, is properly addressed.

I cannot comment intelligently on specific countries because I do not know enough about them. I can only speak generally about poverty and violence in Nepal. I can only say that geography, and culture, are against improving the Nepal's economic conditions very much. Tourism has even declined because of the ongoing internal war, which has also drained the economy.

Nepal has to start down the road towards economic improvement. For this the voice of the poor should be taken to the policy makers. In Nepal, huge amounts of resources are being used to fight the elusive enemy, terrorism, while the evident enemy, poverty, is left to grow more dangerous. Eradicating poverty is not as simple.

Eradication of poverty and the ending of hunger and terrorism have long been recognised as among the most central challenges.

Equitable patterns of growth are essential for sustainable poverty reduction. Policies supporting economic stability, as well as embedded safety nets are necessary to reduce poverty and protect the poor. Strategies to reduce poverty must be situation-specific, directly addressing the realities on the ground.

Poverty in Nepal today is high. The rural poor depend on agriculture. Making appropriate investments in rural roads, irrigation, rural electrification, and extension services-would help considerably in improving their lives.

Increasing investment in basic education and health care are important in ensuring that the poor participate meaningfully in the country's economic growth.

Policy makers must focus on generating high rates of sustainable growth while ensuring that the benefits of that growth is spread to all parts of society.

This Maoists war and terrorism have resulted in many people being displaced, many murdered, many children being orphaned and many women becoming widows and poor.

To compete in the twenty first century economy, Nepal need individuals with expertise in various professional endeavors to formulate national policy. To change Nepal's economy dependency, Nepal's educated individuals would have to actively participate in the economic process. In conclusion, it is a moral duty of the educated people of Nepal to save our nation.

What is required is the commitment and coordination. Therefore, in order to effectively fight terrorism and poverty, we must take the broadest possible approach.

Terrorism and Poverty have a direct role in Nepal's instability. Violence damaged investors' confidence, hampered economic development, and reduced the credit rating of our country. Poverty is the major obstacle in the way of economic and institutional development of representative democracy in Nepal.

The elimination of poverty and terrorism is a big challenge to the future economic growth. Poverty also affects people's daily lives. Nepal also has to stop maintaining the money losing public sector companies.

Nepal do not even produce a single dominant quality product for the world markets. Nepal desperately need to invest in basic needs of our people. Nepal should encourage private entrepreneurs to provide roads, telecommunications and other infrastructure to create jobs and a wealthier society.

There is, no doubt, that terrorism and poverty harms democracy. Nepal should heavily invest in education of its people. Mandatory free high school education, land grant based universities and the industry support for the higher education is a best idea. Nepal should pick the most suitable model with the right amount of capitalistic and social values suitable to our country.

Nepal should not hesitate in experimenting and adopting various successful programs experimented by various countries. Similarly, poverty is said to harm democracy by weakening institutions, diverting resources and decreasing legitimacy. They're the rising, emerging entrepreneurial people who run small businesses and who rely on not too tight an economy in order to have jobs and to generate jobs.

Only then we can prepare a thorough work plan and strategy to combat poverty and terrorism. The general people should be made aware to combat poverty and terrorism.

Now, if we look at least the case of Mexico and very many other countries in Latin America that there are multiple mechanisms for income transfers. There are tax exemptions for some basic commodities. There are sometimes price controls on telephones. There are sometimes price controls on transportation. There are food subsidies. There is sometimes free delivery of goods. There's a multiple set of mechanisms through which these mechanisms work.

Food security mainly brings agriculture, Public Distribution System and the subsidy structure in to focus. We have questions how the higher level of social consumption with relatively better distribution of incomes and wealth vastly widened the demand of those economies and facilitated more broad based development.

For Nepal to overcome these problems; educated people have to become involved.

The quality of human resources, which is important in an increasingly competitive environment. The principle of social equity must underline economic prosperity.

South Asia and Poverty

High rates of poverty in South Asia are not a new phenomenon. It is prevalent both in the rural and urban areas. The UN poverty index, quoted in the report, shows that the poverty rate has reached 53 percent in India, 53 percent in Nepal, 29 percent in Bangladesh, 12 percent in Pakistan and 4 percent in Sri Lanka.

The recently issued report on Human Development in South Asia also reveals terrible impoverishment and inequality. Women suffer the most. For the entire region, the illiteracy rate among women is 38 percent. The highest rate is in Nepal-86 percent, followed by 76 percent in Pakistan, 74 percent in Bangladesh, 72 percent in Bhutan and 62 percent in India.

(Kamala Sarup is an editor of http://peacejournalism.com/ )

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