1 July 2015

SHARED PROSPERITY
1. What is Shared Prosperity?
Economic growth and equity
Foster income growth of the bottom 40 percent of a country's population
2. Why is shared prosperity needed?

To reduce inequality and social exclusion

Increase living standards of all citizens, not just the privileged few

3. Does shared prosperity redistribute wealth?

No. Rather, create more wealth and share it in ways that will boost the economy of the bottom
40 percent.
4. What is the SP Indicator?
Tracking the income of the bottom 40 % population. Previous practice: Focus on GDP. But, it
didnt trickle down to the poor.
5. How can SP be achieved by a country?
There are many pathways to it.
There will be specific roles of the government, civil society and the citizens.
Generate jobs and economic opportunities for all segments of the population, specially the poor.
Private sector is the main job creator.
Government implements policies and regulations that promote high job opportunities, high
investment rates and by investing in labor skills to build an efficient workforce.
Examples: growth based on utilization of natural resources, agricultural productivity.
Healthy and stable 'Social Contract': Improved and equal opportunities for children, youth,
women, poor, vulnerable.
Mechanisms to support the government's commitments. Eg. Tax system for economic growth
and fairness.

Essay Tips
A good approach to writing the essay is to demonstrate a solid understanding of the WBG and
its goals broadly, as well as showing specific professional and sector expertise that you may
have. As such, your approach would seem to make sense. Be sure to submit a well-written
essay that highlights your development understanding and capacity.

A good approach to the application essay is to show both a general understanding of

the work and mission of the WBG, as well as drawing on your specific professional
and analytical capacity and expertise, such as in a particular region or particular
sector. In general, it should be well-written and highlight the relevant skills and
capacity that you would bring to the WBG as a YP.

The essay is a bit forward-looking and would like to have you speak to the kind of
skills and capacity that you would bring as a YP. A good approach to the essay is to
show an understanding of the WBGs global work and goals, as well as demonstrating
your specific professional experience and capacity in a particular area or sector.
You need to be able to demonstrate that you have a good understanding of
development issues in general, with specific examples from your direct field of
expertise, and that the skills you have are relevant and transferrable to other sectors
as well.

5 July 2015

POVERTY REDUCTION
Contribution of water management to poverty reduction

ensuring that the poor have access to safe drinking water and improved
sanitation has, rightly, been prominent in international discussions, and
specific targets have been included in the internationally agreed MDGs
But the contribution of water management to poverty reduction goes far
beyond just drinking water and sanitation: water is essential for improving
the health and livelihoods of the poor, ensuring wider environmental
sustainability, reducing urban squalor and eradicating hunger. It is also
critical in addressing gender inequalities and improving access to education
for the poor.
there is little prospect of many health, environmental or income targets
being achieved unless action is taken to address water problems.

Poverty reduction in the context of Nepal

1. What is poverty?

a. Deprivation of essential assets and opportunities to which every human is entitled.

b. Non availability of basic needs of clothes, food, shelter

c. Poverty is powerlessness/voicelessness

d. Reflected in resource capability and attitude

e. Poverty will continue to rise if there is no access to opportunity despite having ability

f. Human poverty is more fatal than economic poverty

2. How can we recognize poverty?

a. Health-Average age

b. Education, literacy

c. Employment

d. Basic needs

e. Nutrition

f. Access to clean drinking water, sanitation, electricity, education

3. In Nepal, Poverty Reduction is an issue of national priority. 20 % elite use 52% income benefit,
50% middle class use 37 % and 40 % lower income group utilize only 11% of the income
benefit.

4. What are the different dimensions of poverty?

a. Low income Level

b. Indicated by Human Development Index

c. Lack of social inclusion in development and economic activities. This leads to social
exclusion which further enhances poverty creating more vulnerable conditions for the
poor people.

5. What are the bases of poverty reduction? What are the main tools of poverty reduction in
Nepal?

1. Self employment

2. Upgrade of rural lifestyle

3. Modern agriculture system

4. Strengthening of industry and agriculture profession

a. Rural-Urban partnership

b. Agriculture promotion
5. Put in place the prerequisites for achieving faster, sustained and inclusive growth.

6. Attract private and public investment in key growth sectors like energy and transportation.

7. The government could encourage private investment in hydropower sector using

public private partnerships and subcontracting which in turn would create skills, jobs
and help boost local economies in the project areas.

ROLE OF ENGINEERING IN POVERTY REDUCTION

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 Neighboring 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 realized 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 judgment and lack
of knowledge based infrastructure.

3. Poverty in Nepal and Governments 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,
Nepals 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:

Broad based Economic Growth

Social Development

Targeted Programmes

Good Governance

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.