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Role of Engineering in
Poverty Reduction - Nepalese
Context*
1.
General
Poverty is a deprivation of
essential assets and
opportunities to which every
human is entitled. Poverty is
better measured in terms of
basic education; health care;
nutrition; water and sanitation;
as well as income, employment,
and wages.
It is proven by history of human
civilization, and a well
accepted fact that poverty
reduction is directly linked
with engineering interventions.
Every measures to fight poverty
and enhance quality of life of
people through building of
infrastructure facility, be it
access, irrigation, hydropower,
water supply, school and
hospitals, tourism development
etc. naturally demands expert
engineering solutions. Trade and
industry can foster only when
enough infrastructure facilities
are made available. Thus, none
of the target development is
possible without developing
basic infrastructure. For
example, to develop health
sector, health post or hospitals
are to be constructed.
Similarly, to develop education
sector, physical infrastructures
like schools and colleges are to
be constructed. To develop
socio-economic conditions of
poor farmers, irrigation
systems, farm to market roads
etc. are to be constructed. To
generate electricity, hydropower
systems or nuclear power
stations are to be constructed.
Basic necessity for processing
and production will need
industrial setup. To initiate
any development infrastructure,
it has to be studied, surveyed,
designed, estimated, contracted
and supervised during
implementation. All these
requires engineering solutions.
In this context, Engineering is
the backbone of development and
poverty alleviation of any
country.
2. Lessons Learnt from Rapidly
Developing Neighbouring
Countries
The remarkable success that
China has achieved in reducing
poverty over the last two
decades is largely due to its
massive investments on
infrastructure - extending toll
roads, power and water services,
and improved communications into
the more remote west.
Meanwhile in India, construction
projects employ at least 31
million people, of whom more
than half are extremely poor
migrant workers, and many are
unskilled women. The Delhi Metro
Rail Corporation, for instance,
is pioneering an 8-year
improvement programme in Health,
Welfare and Safety standards for
its 20,000 labourers. Here
engineering and reduction of
social deprivation are at direct
face with each other. The
Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yozana
(Prime Minister Rural Road
Programme), and Gramin Rojgar
Yozana (Rural Employment
Programme) are all targeting
development of rural
infrastructure, provide them
better access to services and
facilities and aim at poverty
alleviation.
Our small neighbouring country-
Bhutan, has gained leaps in
alleviation of poverty through
construction of hydropower
projects and export of power to
India. The 336 MW Chukha
Hydropower Project was
constructed in 1988. At present,
Tala Hydel Project of 1020 MW
capacity is under construction.
After commissioning of this
Hydel Project, within next few
years, it is expected that their
per capita income will be much
more than 1400 US $ established
in the year 2003. As a result,
even now, there is ‘Zero’
population below poverty line in
the country. Nepal is also very
rich in hydropower potential,
almost double than that of
Bhutan, which yet remains
largely un-harnessed due to the
lack of political commitment.
Lately, it was realised that
there are series of backdrops in
the prerequisites for
development as lack of policy
reforms, lack of commitments,
lack of innovativeness, and lack
of open mind sets value added
judgement and lack of knowledge
based infrastructure.
3. Poverty in Nepal and
Government’s Policy and Strategy
Though Nepal is one of the
richest countries in natural
endowment is, however, one of
the poorest countries in the
world. The country has
geographical and topographical
diversities, unparallel natural
scenic beauties scattered across
the country, enormous biological
resources, cultural heritages,
religious pilgrimages, trekking
and mountaineering
attractions/challenges with high
prospects of tourism
development, herbal plants,
large hydropower potentials and
other economic potentials. One
of the major reasons of Nepal
falling in the poverty trap is
basically lack of infrastructure
facilities. The rugged
topography and fragile geology
have made infrastructure
development a challenging task
requiring appropriate
engineering interventions. Now,
Nepal is ranked 140th out of 177
countries with Human Development
Index (HDI) value of 0.504 (UNDP,
2004). In 1996, 42 % of all
Nepalese were living under
absolute line of poverty. Eight
years later (in 2003/2004), this
figure has dropped to 31 %.
(CBS/World Bank, 2005). During a
workshop organized by the World
Bank (May 11-12, 2005),
economists and researchers gave
five reasons for declined
tendency of poverty in Nepal,
one of which was increased role
of private sector due to
infrastructure development in
transportation, communication
and electricity, which is the
contribution of engineering
science.
Poverty is greater in rural
areas in the country, especially
in higher-altitude and less
accessible regions and among
lower castes and ethnic
minorities. Measures of human
poverty tend to mirror the more
traditional measures of income
poverty.
The Millennium Development Goal
and Nepal:
At the Millennium Summit of
September 2000, the Member
States of the United Nations
adopted the Millennium
Declaration, which aims to bring
peace, security, and development
to all people. The Millennium
Development Goals, drawn from
the Millennium Declaration, are
a groundbreaking international
development agenda for the 21st
Century to which all nations are
committed. One of the major
intent of The Millennium
Development Goal (MDG) is to
halve absolute poverty in the
world by the deadline of 2015.
Target 9 and 10 of the MDG
categorically demand to
Integrate the principles of
sustainable development into
country policies and programmes
and reverse loss of
environmental resources; reduce
by half the proportion of people
without sustainable access to
safe drinking water; and achieve
significant improvement in lives
of at least 100 million slum
dwellers by 2020.
Nepal is one of the signatories
to the Millennium Development
Goad (MDG) Declaration. Since
then, Nepal has committed itself
to attaining the MDGs. The Nepal
Millennium Development Goal,
Progress Report, 2005, NPC, HMGN/UN
states that ‘in spite of the
impressive progress in human
development, and the emphasis on
good governance and social
inclusion in its poverty
reduction strategy in Tenth
Plan, Nepal’s development has
been limited by a number of
constraints which include, inter
alia, its rugged terrain and
innumerable rivers and rivulets
(about 6,000) with inadequate
infrastructure, little resource
endowment, high transport and
investment cost, weak
governance, and high population
growth’.
Nepal has gone through planned
development efforts since 1956.
The ongoing Tenth Plan
(2002-2007) explicitly
identifies poverty reduction as
the overriding objective of
development efforts in Nepal.
The Plan makes a sole objective
of achieving a remarkable
reduction in the poverty level
from 38% (at the beginning of
the Plan ) to 30% by the end of
the Plan in 2007.
The Poverty Reduction Strategy
Paper (PRSP) of the Tenth Plan
enunciates the following four
major pillars for poverty
reduction:
The first
pillar of PRSP, i.e. Broad Based
Economic Growth highlights on
the needs of policy, regulatory
and implementation level
interventions in agriculture
development, improved irrigation
facilities, rural
electrification, sustainable
forest and environment
management, industrialization in
priority sector, opening up more
tourism destinations and
improving tourism
infrastructure, expansion of
road density, communication
infrastructure and information
technology and foreign
investment. All these can only
be achieved through application
of appropriate engineering
technology.
Living between the two rapidly
developing economic giants, who
are accounted as the future
superpower of the World in next
two decades, and living at
neighborhood of Bhutan, Nepal is
still searching and endeavoring
to find lasting solution to
reduce poverty. Time is rich to
learn lessons from the
neighbouring countries and march
ahead for real achievements,
which will largely depend upon
development projects through
engineering interventions.
3.1 Engineering Human Resources
in Nepal
Till a decade back, there were
very few engineers produced in
the country through assistance
of friendly countries,
particularly India and the then
USSR. It is believed to some
extent that the development
efforts of Nepal was adversely
affected due to lack of adequate
numbers of engineering
professionals in the country.
However, at present, the country
has more than 22 engineering
colleges producing about 3000
engineers yearly in the country.
In addition, some 1,000
engineers get graduated every
year from abroad. At present,
the total Engineering Human
Resources in Nepal exceeds
12,000 in number.
In the above background, laxity
observed in the past hindering
development of infrastructure
facility due to lack of enough
engineers and technical
resources is expected to change
dramatically in future. The
encouraging quantity and quality
of engineers being produced
within country is expected to
fill in the gap of technical
manpower and contribute in the
construction of development
infrastructure utilizing the
skilled manpower within the
country itself. This will
definitely have a long-term
positive impact in the poverty
alleviation efforts of the
nation.
4.
Conclusion
Indicators of development of
any country is a strong
infrastructure base, be it
roads, irrigation, hydropower,
water supply, buildings etc.
Without basic infrastructure
facilities, the country cannot
make available basic social
services to the poor. Existing
socio-economic condition cannot
be changed and poverty remains
prevailing. Engineering plays a
primary and pivotal role in
building infrastructures and
achieve the Millennium
Development Goal. But,
traditional engineering
approaches have not always
reduced poverty, for example
where externally conceived
projects have been imposed
without appreciation to local
needs and conditions. To address
this, the engineering needs to
be designed and delivered in
sensitive relation to its
context, and to be focused on
outcomes not artifacts.
In country like Nepal, there is
huge task of construction of
infrastructure facilities, both
basic as well as developmental.
Committed and efficient
engineering solutions are needed
to accomplish this.
Lessons from the past should be
learnt, and mistakes should be
rectified. We all must try to
know how the fast growing
economic giants like China,
India, South-East Asian
countries could make such rapid
economic progress, and analyse
what sort of policies did they
follow to attain this. Such
lessons learnt must be
practically applied with full
commitment of the government.
One of the strong means to
achieve intended development
with positive and future looking
approach is by placing the right
person in the right place. Only
politicians, economists and
bureaucrats should not be given
priority to make in-charge of
national development planning
and policy-making process. Here
too, we must learn lessons from
China, India, and South East
Asian countries, where
technocrats and engineers have
been at central play of national
development planning.
Technocrats have become
president and prime minister.
Indeed they have been very
successful, and we can see what
they have done in their country.
Thus, we also must adopt this
trend, as technocrats are also
people, who are the cream of
intellectuals, they are better
educated, have respectful
position in the society are
oriented to ground level
planning, and are trained for
long-term vision.
At the end, we all agree that
alleviation of poverty,
enhancement of quality of life
of people and an overall
sustainable development of the
country is only possible through
dynamic and broad-based economic
development for which adequate
and efficient infrastructure
facilities are must. Only
adequacy of infrastructure
facilities attracts development
activities in the country like
agriculture, trade, commerce,
industry, tourism etc.
Development of infrastructure
can be done only through
engineering inputs. This
indicates the vital importance
and mandatory linkage between
infrastructure development,
engineering and its contribution
in poverty alleviation.
From the above, one can conclude
the important role of
engineering and demand of
technical human resources in
addressing poverty in any
country. |
