Poverty and Development

Poverty and Development

By Bachchu Kailash Kaini

Too often, we think and talk about poverty and development. It is bountiful harvests and busy production lines that we see in our minds' eyes. We know that more than forty percent of the total populations fall below the poverty line in Nepal. Many projects have been launched targeting to reduce poverty. Poverty is the main agenda of each and every five-year national plan. Thousands of millions of rupees have been received from the donor agencies and spent to reduce the poverty. Major chunk of national budget has been allocated for this purpose and it is the major concern of all development efforts. Despite of all efforts, neither poverty has reduced nor there are significant changes on the poverty-trend. The proportion has remained virtually unchanged despite decades of planning and phenomenal growth in agricultural and industrial production.

Why has this happened? What must be done to ensure that the benefits of development do not elide the poor? Is there a possibility of a different organization of men and material which would enable the bulk of the rural population to avail of the goods and services needed for a decent living? These are basic questions on poverty and development issues in our country.

Over the few last decades, scientists have made impressive progress in the areas of health care, population planing and food production. Third World countries concerned with benefiting the rural poor placed great hopes on the technological advances in these fields. Time and again, however, these hopes have shattered against the difficulties of transforming experiment into enterprises, laboratory research results into countryside development programs.

It is unlikely that the real needs of the poor will be addressed until the focus of government administrators shifts from completion of activities to improving the wellbeing of people, and the role of the local level administrator may be the key.