Looking at this year’s report, it seems Nepal is going down a bit overall in integrated indicators. Is it only because of Covid-19 or are there other factors as well?
If you look into the last 32 years, HDR is trying to put forward interactions of people with security, democracy, culture, climate change and other aspects that interact with human nature and to see how people’s development changes with these issues. So, there is no exception on issues that the HDR is trying to put forward this year (2021/2022). We definitely had a covid pandemic, but we also live amid conflicts in Russia, Ukraine and other parts of the world. The pandemic affected everyone equally, conflicts affected us unequally. Now, we have obviously planetary pressures, climate change, pollution and all these pressures coming together making people scared. People are not really settled because of what is happening in the world. It's not only about environment and climate, it's also about conflicts, inequality and access to basics. So, this comes together and then there is the pursuit of transformation in the society. How people are trying new ways to cope with this uncertain situation? People are scared again. Can we work a way out to cope with this planetary pressure, conflict, climate change over this pandemic? People are trying different ways of working, that's the second tier of uncertainty. That is where you need protection, if you’re afraid of getting into certain areas where you’re not completely sure about what it is that you're living in. Then the third tier: Conflicts, disagreements, polarized societies because of disagreements in the society, the community, the family. This is what you face as a result of social and political polarization and disagreement that comes with it. The report tries to illustrate these three types of uncertainties, apart from new ways of coping with planetary pressures and how to try different things to ease them.... These three types of uncertainties are what we call uncertainty complexes. Because when you have different layers, it becomes a bit more complex than when you’ve to deal with only one set of complexities. You only have to deal with conflict then fine, but if you’ve to deal with conflict, if you’ve to deal with the failures to act and lose people and if you also have to deal with basically the political violence in a country or societal violence you might be adding yourself uncertainties and that becomes a bit more complicated to deal with. So, that is what the report is trying to put forward and also to show how these complexities are affecting human development, basically your choices, your options for education, health, and standards of living in a country. This is what the report is trying to illustrate and also offer some of the solutions, policy orientations that the researchers and the authors think that the country could consider and propose to their policymakers. Since all development partners—UN agencies, donors and other parties—are engaged in helping the government collect, plan, and implement, they are also responsible, in a way, aren’t they? Of course, the moment we are using taxpayers’ resources to fund development, accountability lies on everyone. So, you have the duty-bearers and all the development partners are part of that group of duty-bearers in the same account as the government or other institutions. Citizens, including those working in the government, also fall under the category of rights-holders. Basically, it is a role that is interchangeable and everyone is responsible because you have to show results of what you invest in a country. That is why we have mutual accountability, an important principle of development cooperation. It is not only one-sided but mutual accountability where everyone mutually accounts for what the party has agreed to work on together. That is why we are also showing the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals). If you go to goal no. 17, the partnership is an extremely important goal that brings everyone together. There is a role for everyone within intercountry and intra-country (settings) giving everyone the opportunity to come together and make sure that we go there together by 2030 for Global Goals or 2050 for some of the climate targets that we get there by the commitments that we made. In terms of realizing SDGs, how is the government faring? Does this report indicate anything? Until 2019, most probably many of the SDGs were relatively on track not only in Nepal. Unfortunately, with covid, we know that SDGs will not be on track. I think the HDR speaks about it. We would have lost 6 years of development gains just after the pandemic. If we are not careful, if we do not invest in health systems in basic services this can be aggravated more, more pandemics can come. I think I read about 10,000 zoonotic species of viruses that are interacting with humans. That can, all of a sudden, become a pandemic. Your interactions with nature are such that there is room for anything. We are interacting with animals, plants, natural minerals, and with other natural sources. The way that we are expected to behave in harmony with these elements, if that is disturbed, we do not know the outcome of it. There is still time to be conscious about the way we behave, the way we use fossil fuels, the way we exploit biodiversity and forests. The way we look into the glacial lakes in Nepal for example—an extremely important freshwater resource for billions of people. We have some 6m people in Nepal living below multidimensional poverty, but what does it really mean? How many meals a day? Can they really pay the medical bill? Can they send their children to school? How to make sure that you invest in clean energy, you diversify clean energy resources, going from hydro to solar to wind and making sure that it is accepted and invested together? These are fundamental questions about what is important for Nepal in terms of SDGs, in terms of ambitions that Nepal expressed in 2020, 2021 in terms of clean energy targets making sure that 10-15% of your energy would be clean energy. For Nepal, there is still time to be back on track (in terms of SDGs). Even human development trends since 2019 show there are bumpy situations for Nepal like other countries. But it’s time to make conscious and collective decisions. By taking politically, economically, environmentally, socially and culturally sound decisions, Nepal could set an example, I think. What if local governments, at the forefront of development, do not act properly? I think Nepal is uniquely positioned with federalism. The path Nepal chose to go moving from unitary to federal system breaking either way that your service delivery is happening. So, you have 761 different ways to bring those services to the people. Of course, it is a bit complex, it needs a lot of coordination, it means a lot of collaboration, it also means a lot of challenges that would arise from coexistence of these different tiers together. But I think it's an opportunity. We definitely cannot forget the role of local governments in delivering basic services related to education, health, and livelihoods for people in their vicinity. Everybody has a role to play. What do you think the media can actually do individually on this report? I think the media should not only look at the Human Development Index and say Nepal lost or gained. That should not be the headline. It should really go to the analytics of the report. Basically, there are three pieces in the report. You have the whole theme explained through the chapters, then the methodology and then the statistical annexes. The balanced reading of all these pieces would be very very useful. While looking into gender dimensions of human development progress, we sometimes miss out how the men fared or the women fared compared to each other. What does it mean in terms of reproductive health, empowerment or market access for females, for women, for gender inequality index? If you see that, certain provinces will have to double their efforts to bring their indicators a bit higher and to make sure they’re on the right track. Nepal has done a lot of analytics, SDG baselines, for example, in all seven provinces. You have clustered SDG analytics. The media could go beyond the hour of publication or its launch to show interest in the report. You have a good cohort of LDCs to look at. In terms of different dimensions, where can Nepal learn from other developing countries or the LDCs, bring stories forward and have creative debate about the topic? Media can also train younger journalists on Human Development concepts, where it comes from and why it mattered in 1990 and what is its relevance in 2022 or what has changed between 1990 and 2022. So, those are basically giving substance for the younger generation to really do this critical thinking beyond the index and to go to the report to make sure that it is translated into Nepali and other languages. The media can go to universities, bring students to television platforms and ask them to speak about the report to create interest and curiosity among students about development issues and make sure that the debate takes place. That’s what we call thought leadership, critical thinking analytics. It will definitely shape their academic path and will ultimately get into their DNA in the way that they would be behaving in the country to make decisions.
