Kathmandu, August 25

As Nepal is preparing to graduate from the league of least development countries (LDCs), it should effectively manage this transition for desired development growth, as per Selim Jahan, former director at Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Jahan was recently in Nepal to give advisory service to the government on the Human Development Report that the National Planning Commission (NPC) is currently preparing with ‘LDC Graduation’ as the main theme. According to him, the greatest challenge for any country looking to graduate from the LDC category is managing the positive gains and minimising the risks that come along with the graduation.

“LDC graduation for a country means its credit rating will go up, thereby attracting investments from the international market. However, the LDC graduation also means that the country will lose preferential treatments on trade, lose tax facilities and concessional loan facilities,” said Jahan, adding that Nepal should tactfully deal with the transition of LDC graduation.

Jahan also stated that Nepal’s per capita in the South Asian region is below par though it has made a good progress in some of social indicators like low child mortality rate and high life expectancy rate.

“In between 1990 and 2017, Nepal’s Human Development Index value increased by more than 51 per cent, which is also good,” he said. However, low per capita can be a major constraint in LDC graduation, according to him.

On top of that, Jahan applauded the government’s initiative to prepare its own national human development report to provide a clearer picture of the country’s development process. Along with this, he mentioned that the human development report will be an important instrument for the non-governmental organisations, civil society as well as researchers to identify the gaps in development.