KATHMANDU: Nepal and India topped in achieving Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) with 50 points out of 60. Nepal and India have satisfactory reports, a review committee of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) said.

Significant progress has been noticed in health and education sectors, said Prof Pushkar Bajracharya, member of the National Planning Commission (NPC). He pointed out nutrition and sanitation are two major problematic sectors that Nepal has to work on in achieving MDG targets.

Vice-president of Asian Development Bank (ADB) Nicholas Rossellini said that SAARC countries — Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Afghanistan — have made good progress in drinking water and HIV/AIDS but are weak in maintaining sanitation. “Sanitation is a key challenge,” she said.

“Food deficit is another issue directly linked to malnutrition.” Despite strong performance, Nepal cannot meet all targets at a time. “NPC is planning to develop a MDGs-centred next plan,” Bajracharya said. Growing food shortage is coming as a great challenge to us, he added.

NPC, ADB, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and SAARC secretariat have organized a meeting to evaluate MDG progress in SAARC countries from Nov 4 to 6 in Kathmandu. The meeting has developed a new strategy to achieve MDG targets by 2015.