UN special rapporteur arrives in Nepal for poverty assessment
Kathmandu, Nov 29 (EFE).- The United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Olivier De Schutter, arrived in Nepal on Monday to review efforts to alleviate poverty in the Himalayan country.
“UN poverty expert @DeSchutterO is starting today a human rights fact-finding mission to #Nepal from 29 Nov to 9 December to examine the Government’s efforts to alleviate poverty,” said the office of the special rapporteur in its Twitter handle.
De Schutter plans to visit an area of Chabolist neighborhoods on the Bagmati River in the Kathmandu Valley and will participate in “a roundtable on Dalit issues and a roundtable on nationality and citizenship as a condition for economic, social and cultural rights.”
De Schutter said in a statement last week that he welcomed the Nepal government’s commitment to reduce poverty by more than half and cover 60 percent of the population with some form of social protection by 2024.
He added that his visit will be an opportunity to assess progress toward these goals.
The UN rapporteur is also scheduled to meet with local officials and communities affected by poverty, and will present his preliminary findings on Dec.9 in Kathmandu.
As Nepal recovers from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, and from events related to torrential rains such as floods and landslides, the UN rapporteur seeks to examine the social protection program that the Nepalese government has begun to implement.
According to the poverty index report published in August by the National Planning Commission of Nepal, the country has lifted 3.1 million people out of poverty between 2014 and 2019.
However, it added that 17.4 percent of the population or 4.9 million Nepalis were still considered multidimensionally poor. EFE
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