New York- Right Honorable Prime Minister Dr. Baburam Bhattarai addressed the Roundtable 5 of the United Nations Private Sector Forum 2011 on the theme ‘Sustainable Energy for All: Water, Food and Energy Security” today.

In his address, Rt. Hon. PM Dr. Bhattarai highlighted that the Government of Nepal is committed to addressing the problems related to water, food and energy security in an integrated manner. The Interim Constitution of Nepal enshrined the provision of ‘food sovereignty’ as the fundamental right of the people, he said. Rt. Hon. PM Dr. Bhattarai also stressed that the Government of Nepal has given a high priority to the promotion and development of renewable and alternative sources of energy in Nepal. In addition, Nepal is launching a ‘Energy Crisis Mitigation Campaign’ to mitigate energy crisis in the country.

While highlighting the challenges and sever constraints of resources and productive capacity of Nepal which deter the efforts in achieving the targets of development goals including the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), Rt. Hon. PM Dr. Bhattarai underlined the adverse effects of climate change that have appeared in the forms of melting of Himalayan glaciers, landslides and siltation of lakes and reservoirs, droughts, delayed monsoons, and flash floods causing significant decline in crop yields and aggravated the food situation. In spite of these structural constraints, Nepal’s relentless efforts put her on track to achieve a number of its MDG targets, he said.

Emphasizing on the need of development of Nepal’s abundant water resources not only for Nepal but also for the entire region, Rt. Hon. PM Dr. Bhattarai called for a higher level of support and collaboration of the international community including investment from the private sector in harnessing hydropower including improving and promoting clean and easy access to water and sanitation, agricultural production, promotion of alternative energy, exchange of scientific and technological research.  

Rt. Hon. PM Dr.  Bhattarai expressed commitment to improving the productivity of agricultural sector, accelerate efforts to easy availability of water, food and energy security and fight against hunger and poverty.

High-level meeting on Nutrition:

Right Honorable PM Dr. Bhattarai also addressed the High-level meeting on nutrition today. While highlighting Nepal’s achievement in reducing under-five mortality from 91 per thousand lives births in 2001 to 54 per thousand in 2011, Rt. Hon. PM said that semi-annual Vitamin A Supplementation to pre-school children in the last 15 years has successfully sustained with an over 90 percent coverage, and has saved many precious lives of children.
Rt. Hon. PM expressed Nepal’s commitment to improving the nutritional status of children and women as a foundation for future social economic growth and development. H also urged the development partners for providing Nepal the enhanced level of technical and financial cooperation to meet the challenges of nutrition, particularly in the cross-cutting areas of the Multi-sectoral Plan, including institutional strengthening, capacity building and strengthening of monitoring and evaluation to track progress.

Rt. Hon. PM underlined that the Government of Nepal is highly committed to improving the nutritional status of children and women as a foundation for future social economic growth and development. He also expressed appreciation for the continuous technical and financial support that Nepal has been receiving from development partners including the UN agencies and called for enhanced level of support to tackle key challenges of nutrition ahead.

Every Women and Every Child:

Later in the evening, Rt. Hon. PM addressed the high-level meeting ‘Every Women and Every Child’ hosted by the UN Secretary-General. He expressed the commitment of the Government of Nepal to recruit, train and deploy 10,000 additional skilled birth attendants within 5 years, to expand the coverage of free maternity and new born care programs, to double the coverage of preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) programs and to reduce unmet need for family planning to 18 percent. While expressing Nepal’s commitment to increasing the budget of the Ministry of Health and Population, Rt. Hon. PM welcomes international community in joining hands for the fulfillment of resource gaps. ‘Every Women Every Child’ high-level meeting was attended by donors, government leaders who made progress on women and children’s health, private sector, and civil society organizations.

Bilateral Meetings:

On the margin of the high-level meetings, Rt. Hon. PM Dr. Baburam Bhattarai held a bilateral meeting with H.E. Mr. Evo Morales Ayma, President of the Plurinational State of Bolivia. In the meeting two leaders discussed about the strengthening bilateral relations including cooperation in the multilateral forums. Likewise, Hon. Eric Solheim, Leader of the Norwegian delegation and Minister for Environment and International Development of Norway called on Rt. Hon. PM. Minister Solheim expressed continued cooperation in Nepal’s development while Rt. Hon. PM expressed his commitment to take the peace process and constitution writing to its logical conclusion and called for enhanced level of assistance to bring about socio economic transformation in Nepal. Hon. Bruno Rodriguez, Leader of the Cuban delegation and Minister for Foreign Minister of Cuba called on Rt. Hon. Prime minister, today. Two leaders discussed about the matters of bilateral interest including cooperation in the multilateral forums. Similarly, Ms. Navanethem Pillay, High Commissioner, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has also called on Rt. Hon. Prime Minister. Hon. Narayan Kazi Shrestha ‘Prakash’, DPM and Minister for Foreign Affairs accompanied the Rt. Hon. PM in all bilateral meetings. Ambassador/Permanent Representative H.E. Mr. Gyan Chandra Acharya, and Mr. Durga Prasad Bhattarai, Acting Foreign Secretary were also present in all bilateral meetings.   

DPM and Minister for Foreign Affairs Hon. Narayan Kazi Shrestha in separate high-level event:

In a separate high-level meeting of the General Assembly on addressing desertification, land degradation and drought in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication, Honorable Narayan Kazi Shrestha ‘Prakash’, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, delivered a statement.  In his address, Hon. Shrestha stated that Nepal’s economy, as one of Least Developed Countries grappling with poverty and underdevelopment, is basically dependant on climate-sensitive and subsistence agriculture, which has been negatively affected by the degradation of land along with desertification and drought. Hon. Shrestha highlighted the plight of mountain countries like Nepal as mountain ecosystems are among the most fragile and vulnerable ecosystems on earth that are also susceptible to land degradation and desertification.

Hon. Shrestha underscored that Nepal has devised several policy measures through Poverty Reduction Strategy, Sustainable Development Strategy, National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, National Climate Change Policy, National Adaptation Plan of Action, REDD programs to conserve biodiversity, safeguard livelihoods. He highlighted that Nepal has set aside around 23 percent of its land as protected area to save some of the world’s unique flora and fauna and Nepal’s commitment to maintain around 40 percent of land under forest cover. He also stressed that community forestry approach has remained a remarkable success to protect forest, biodiversity, land and livelihood in Nepal.

DPM and FM’s bilateral meeting:

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Hon. Narayan Kazi Shrestha ‘Prakash’ held a meeting with Hon.  R.M. Marty M. Natalagawa, Leader of Indonesian delegation and Foreign Minister of Indonesia. Two leaders agreed to further strengthen bilateral relations, and discussed about the possibility of inter-regional cooperation, strengthening of Non-aligned Movement as well as strengthening of United Nations as a global forum for community of nations. Minister Natalagawa also extended an invitation to Hon. DPM and Foreign Minister to pay a bilateral visit to Indonesia and also to participate in the Bali Democracy Forum to be held in December in Bali Indonesia. The DPM thanked him for the kind invitation and agreed to follow that through diplomatic channels. In the meeting Deputy Permanent Representative Mr. Shanker Bairagi, and Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Mr. Rudra Nepal were also present.  

20 September 2011

PERMANENT MISSION OF NEPAL TO THE UNITED NATIONS
820 Second Avenue, 17th Floor, New York, NY 10017
Tel. Nos. (212) 370-3988; 370-3989 Fax No. (212) 953-2038
E-mail address: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ; Website: www.un.int/nepal

Read our exclusive reporting on:

संघीयता | राजतन्त्र? | महिला | NRN | दलित समस्या | न्यू योर्क नेपाली | प्रबास | India

Not enough of reading us? Visit our multi-media channels:

Comments

Name *
Email (For verification & Replies)
URL
Code   

Submit Comment