Introduction and Overview:
Nepal's Sustainable Development Agenda aims to guide and influence national-level planning and policies up to 2017. The agenda presented draws upon and is in conformity with the longer term goals envisaged in the Ninth Plan (1997-2002), the Tenth Plan (2002-2007), the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, the Millennium Development Goals, and commitments made by the country in various international forums. Accepting and building upon Nepal's status as a largely mountainous country beset by poverty but holding tremendous future potentials, this document goes beyond setting goals that appear within reach by simply projecting forward the trends of the recent past. It states broad goals that describe where HMG hopes to take Nepal by 2017. Reaching these goals is challenging but plausible.

This document begins by describing the pathways forward to achieving the goals, detailed objectives, followed by necessary government policies. Due to cross-cutting linkages, the discussion is grouped into broad topic themes (income; health; education; institutions and infrastructure; forest, ecosystems and biodiversity; and security). Many of these objectives are to be fulfilled through policies in multiple sectors, while policies in individual sectors will contribute to achieving multiple objectives. Finally, the document describes how it can remain relevant over a fifteen-year time scale during which new knowledge, needs, and information will arise.

Defining Sustainable Development for Nepal:
The over-arching goal of sustainable development in Nepal is to expedite a process that reduces poverty and provides to its citizens and successive generations not just the basic means of livelihood, but also the broadest of opportunities in the social, economic, political, cultural, and ecological aspects of their lives.

This begins with the pursuit of increased per capita income afforded by a stable population size that generates a viable and environmentally sound domestic resource base to create and nurture institutions of the state, markets, and civil society, whose services can be accessed equitably by all Nepalese. Basic development processes are to be overseen by accountable units of government with representation of women and men of all ethnicity and socio-economic status, whose management of resources, including the environment, is to be governed by an imperative that the ability of future Nepali generations to sustain or improve upon their quality of life and livelihoods is kept intact.

A corollary inherent in viewing sustainable development in Nepal in these broad terms is a national resolve to pursue happy, healthy, and secure lives as citizens who lead a life of honor and dignity in a tolerant, just and democratic nation.

Opportunities and Constraints :
A fifteen-year sustainable development agenda of Nepal must draw upon the country's current and potential strengths as well as take into account its vulnerabilities. Nepal's strengths include its attractive marketable landscape and its unique biodiversity, its large hydropower potential, its fertile Terai lands, good agro climates in the hills, large market prospect in neighboring countries as well as its diverse people and their cultural heritage. Nepal is also already working to build a fifth strength: an educated, skilled workforce. Nepal's development path will be constrained by weaknesses including its landlocked ness, its rugged and isolating topography, weak technical know-how and limited financial resource base. In addition, Nepal will continue to be vulnerable to losses and damage from climate change, natural disaster and environmental degradation.

To earn the income necessary for sustainable national development, Nepal must provide to the world market products and services for which it has a comparative advantage. It has a biologically and culturally rich landscape whose marketing for tourism can be greatly increased, that can support rural livelihoods and provide a large variety of forest products, and that can also provide attractive settings for international educational and health care institutions. It also has the potential to produce premium and high value agricultural products as well as medicines from indigenous herbs and genetic resources. It has the potential to meet its entire energy needs through clean hydropower; this will especially contribute to the upliftment of women from drudgery. By attracting foreign investment, opportunity also exists for large export to neighboring countries. The country's cultural richness is also a source of indigenous strength to the nation offering diversity of ideas, ways of thinking, and practices. By adequately targeting investment in education, the country has the potential to build additional strength of a skilled workforce, drawn from today's young demographic composition (nearly 40% of Nepal's population is within the age range 0-14).

Planning for sustainable development for Nepal also has to take into account the areas where Nepal has disadvantages. For example, without a sea port, Nepal will unlikely be able to compete on the world market with shipping-dependent heavy industry. Nepal's economy is heavily influenced by the economy of two large neighboring countries. The mountain landscapes that can be marketed to tourism also make infrastructure expensive, and in addition, increase travel distance and cost. The diversity of ecosystems and micro-habitats inherent in a mountainous landscape also makes resource management more challenging: rarely can a blanket national policy bring in desired effects nationwide.

Today, a nascent democracy in Nepal, which has had to mediate competing interests and legacies long rooted in a patriarchal, multi-lingual, and multi-ethnic setting, finds itself faced with difficult challenges, including random acts of violence and terror. Nepal's future growth hinges upon the challenging task of bringing every political and social force into the national mainstream adequately with meaningful political participation through decentralization.

Nepal is also vulnerable to natural influences. Its agricultural system is heavily dependent upon the timing and quantity of monsoon rains. During the dry season, drinking water, irrigation, and hydropower depend upon melt-water from glaciers. Climate change may affect the monsoon cycle, melt Himalayan glaciers, and threaten the survival of Nepal's biodiversity. Moreover, land slides, especially due to weak geological structure of Siwaliks and floods downstream have resulted in loss of fertile soil from Terai. Regarding air pollution, Nepal is currently vulnerable not just to domestic emissions (including indoor air pollution from bio fuel combustion) but also to growing trans-boundary air pollution from urban and industrial areas.

Broad Goals:
This section lists a set of the broad goals that Nepal aspires to achieve by pursuing sustainable development over the time frame of this agenda. The pathways to achieving these goals are described in the sections that follow.

Successful implementation of the Sustainable Development Agenda of Nepal is defined to mean that:

* Every citizen is able to lead a secure life freely and with dignity.
* Every citizen and household has an income that not just covers expenses needed for reasonable healthy living, but also allows the accumulation of savings and the pursuit of knowledge and leisurely activities.
* Every girl and boy child attends school, every adult is literate.
* Vocational training is accessible to anyone.
* Every citizen is able to pursue higher education based on merit, irrespective of financial circumstances and social standing.
* No home in the country is more than a few hours of travel away from basic medical facilities.
* Every citizen has easy access to adequate amounts of clean water, nutritious food, and clean air.
* Most of the nation's energy is generated from domestic renewable sources, including hydro, solar, wind, as well as sustainable harvested and cleanly burned bio-fuel. The transport sector is increasingly powered by domestic renewable energy sources, with continuing efforts to free it from fossil-fuel dependence.
* Nepal's hydropower potential is developed not just for domestic consumption but also to provide a steady source of export income.
* Land use is planned and managed at the local and national level such that resource bases and ecosystems are improved, with complementarily between high- and low- lands, that forest biomass grows, that agricultural and forest lands are protected from urban sprawl, and that biodiversity is conserved at the landscape level by recognizing threats from habitat fragmentation and loss of forest cover.
* A system of protected areas (including national parks and conservation areas) is maintained and further developed to safeguard the nation's rich biodiversity. Local communities near protected areas are involved in both the management and economic benefit sharing of the area.
* Every citizen has adequate availability of forest products to meet his or her basic need, and also has the opportunity to enjoy aesthetic and spiritual experiences in nature.
* The micro-climates of hills and mountains are used to produce high-value agricultural products and sustainable production of non-timber forest products for domestic consumption and export.
* Scientific research and domestic industry ensures that Nepal gets adequate benefit from the protection of the genetic diversity of its biological resources.
* Domestic scientific expertise on global and regional environmental threats, including climate change, is developed to closely inform Nepal's foreign and domestic policy on those as well as to help adequately prepare for adverse consequences.
* Every Village Development Committee (VDC) is linked to the rest of the country by at least one modern form of transportation and communication.
* Viable domestic industries meet at low cost the demand for products of daily household use as well as produce high-value, low-weight products for export.
* Nepal is better integrated internationally and becomes an attractive place for foreign investment. Its natural and cultural heritage is protected and marketed to visitors to generate maximum revenue.
* All citizens, from every culture, ethnicity and religion have swift access to all forms of state services provided by each branch of the state - the executive, the legislature, the judiciary, and all their sub-entities. Institutions of the state represent women and men of all ethnicity and social groups.
* The national development budget is financed largely through domestic resources.
* Foreign aid is limited to specific sectors only, then gradually phased out, first from areas where Nepal can help itself.