Kathmandu, February 20:

A two-day long Nepal Donor Consultation Meeting (NDCM)-2008 is being organised in Kathmandu on February 21-22 to discuss peace process and development challenges.

The meeting basically aims at communicating with Nepal’s development partners on its challenges and opportunities of peace and development in the context of post Jana Andolan-II, said finance minister Dr Ram Sharan Mahat, at a pre-event press meet, today. “Peace and development will be a major topic for the discussion, in which the government will apprise its development partners on current situation,” he said.

The meeting also seeks to establish a close contact between government and development partners as well as government and Nepali citizens for launching peace and development activities together, he said, adding that the donors would have a chance to acquire first hand information on peace process and development challenges.

Dr Mahat further added that it would be an appropriate forum to build a climate of trust, cooperation and understanding through mutual dialogue, information sharing and collaboration between development partners and civil society. “Though the meeting is not a pledging conference,” he said that the government would brief on the overall situation and need of resources to meet development challenges.

Besides political situation and stabilisation of peace pro-cess, government also plans to discuss about Three-Year Interim Plan (TYIP) and need for ensuring resource availability for its implementation.

Other issues that the government is putting forth for discussion include the urgency of delivering peace dividend to people and need to disseminate the progress made on various reform initiatives as well as the constraints in managing the current state of transition.

Though it is not Nepal Development Forum (NDF), it is a prelude to the full-fledged

NDF which the government plans to host sometime after the election, when the country will have reached a new phase of political stabilisation, Dr Mahat added.

The meeting will have four sessions and two presentations will be made on TYIP and Development Deliverables by Dr Jagadish Chandra Pokharel, vice-chairman of National Planning Commission.

Finance secretary Vidyadhar Mallik will make a presentation on ‘Economic Update: Challenges and Road Ahead’. A roundtable session with representatives of political parties and civil society on ‘Nepal’s Evolving Peace Process and Development Derivatives’ will also be held and Kul Chandra Gautam, former assistant secretary general of the UN is scheduled to moderate it.

Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala is scheduled to inaugurate and address the meeting on Thursday. More than 125 donor representatives from development agencies (both bilateral and multilateral) are expected to take part in the meeting.

Liqun Jin, vice-president of the ADB will address the meeting representing Nepal’s development partners.