Communities helping Nepal meet millennium goals

by pankaj kumar | September 19, 2010 at 03:13 am

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Jagadish Chandra Pokharel, vice-chairman of the Nepal Planning Commission, said community organisations were the key to its success in reducing the number of deaths in childbirth and getting more girls into school.

KATHMANDU — Despite years of civil war and political instability, Nepal is on track to meet several of its Millennium Development Goals, with major strides forward on maternal and child mortality.

Landlocked Nepal remains one of the world's poorest countries, with high rates of unemployment and an average annual income of just 472 dollars.

But more than nine out of 10 primary school age children are now in education and 86 percent of people aged between 15 and 24 can read and write, according to a 2010 progress report by the government and the United Nations.

With another five years to go, the government and the United Nations say Nepal is likely to achieve, or partially achieve, five of the seven goals laid out in 2000.

Among the achievements highlighted in the report are a fall in maternal mortality rates from 850 per 100,000 live births in 1990 to an estimated 229 this year, a reduction of 73 percent.