Nepal has set itself the goal to graduate from least developed country status by 2022. Cited as one of the ‘fastest movers’ by the Human Development Report, the country has made significant progress towards achieving its development goals. The focus on broad-based economic growth and poverty alleviation has produced encouraging results, with the percentage of the population living below the poverty line falling from 42 in 1996 to 25.4 in 2011. Despite the difficult post-conflict transitional context, the country is expected to achieve six out of its eight Millennium Development Goals by 2015, and is likely to achieve targets for poverty and hunger, universal primary education, child mortality, maternal health and gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Women’s representation in the Constituent Assembly dramatically increased to 29 per cent in the November 2013 elections from 2.9 per cent in 1991 (in the then parliament). Additionally, Nepal has demonstrated active leadership in development issues globally, playing a formative role in the development and adoption of the Istanbul Programme of Action in 2011... Read more