Excellencies distinguished officials of Nepal, dear UNDP colleagues, and friends of UNDP as well as the development fraternity here and abroad.  Let me start with a full disclosure, I am a proud alumnus of United Nations Development Programme. I spent 10 glorious years with UNDP, at different parts of the world. I am also very happy to see Ms Lalita Thapa is here. She was my first boss at UNDP.


In 1997 I was a young graduate who had just come back to Nepal and got to work on a very prestigious assignment at that time, the very first Nepal development report and we pulled it off. Dr. Devendra Raj Pandey was the main author of the report and a model that UNDP practiced at that time for that project, has been useful to me during the course of my career. So UNDP funded it, but it said it is an editorial independent production. So UNDP took all the credit, and for all the criticism it could say it is editorially independent, so blame the authors. So that was a very good model to pursue, but I had a very fulfilling 2 and a half years. 

Then I got to travel across Nepal. It was the affection of my own country that brought me back almost 20 years later, to serve permanently in public life here. I then went to pursue graduate studies, and soon after that I joined UNDP again, at the regional level, so I was stationed in Vietnam which covered much of the continent, and this is where I got to see UNDP’s appetite for new ventures, new risks, trading into new areas, not being confined to comfort zones. The technicality of international trade policy, was what was initiated in 2001 after the debacle the WTO conference in Seattle collapsed, UNDP felt this is not a technical subject that should be left to the preserve of the ministry of finance or ministry of trade. This affects livelihoods, this affects all the citizens, trade policies, and come as they may be …impact all lives.

And UNDP should be in this area, so I got to fashion a new programme helping WTO to do negotiations but also doing the economic analysis of all the impacts of all the trade agreements. And many of you remember, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in the United States, the Doha-development round took off, and there was an unprecedented unanimity across the global community in rallying behind creating a development is a major theme for organising development assistance during that decade. Unfortunately that has pelted out  that is no longer the case, a lot of development assistance and even national priorities have now fragmented almost balkanised.

And the cohesive hole, that global ethos, has very much vanished and we have to reclaim that. Going forward, I then worked for the world bank during my PhD, and then I can back to UNDP for a very short assignment to co-author the 2020 global human development report. It was on the rise of the south. So again, UNDP was ahead of the times before the prominent countries like China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa, and other large developing countries made a breakthrough in the global arena of policy making way before G20 was formed, or around the same time in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.

We were able to document this rise of the developing countries, and also project and predict how this will reshape the world order and right now we see that clearly with China and India, in particular leading much of that landscape. During the Covid year, I was fortunate enough to have been invited by Ms Kanni Wignaraja to work with her directly as the chief economic advisor for the entire region. Again, very fulfilling years and very satisfying efforts and interventions at a very difficult time globally and not just for Nepal. 

And then, the reversal of human development gains, the technological breakthroughs we could leverage for the delivery of vaccines for example. I’m giving you an example of many areas often, unconventionally tied to development efforts on part of the United Nations. It’s a very rigid organisation, rigid bureaucracy and you would expect, that the UN would not be agile, flexible, risk-taking, etcetera. But it's just the contrary, in all the experiences that I myself had had, so I can speak with authority on how valuable the partnership with UNDP has been and not just Nepal but across the developing world. 

Here in Nepal, we saw the lovely video from the airstrips that UNDP helped build, design, do all these pre-feasibility studies, etc. I remember actually, many of the major infrastructure projects would ultimately be funded by the MDB’s, but there was a time when UNDP did the pre-feasibility studies and technical assistance during the 60’s and the 70’s and the 80’s. In the 90s’ it shifted gears and I remember when we worked at UNDP almost 30 years ago in the aftermath of the democratic restoration of this country, all these models of participatory development, community mobilisation theory were all very new.  

And I think Nepal approved that it is a very successful model. And this was replicated in different parts of the world from Kyrgyzstan to Afghanistan, and guess who managed all this UNDP projects in other countries? 
It is the Nepali alumni who had learned those tricks of the trades right here in Nepal. 

It was very satisfying for me as I pursued my own international career to meet Nepali friends and professionals who were taking the Nepali example.  I still remember the acronyms of that time, right? PPP
all this famous programs form the 90s. Now, again very sad to know a lot of the efforts were deleared(?)3135
cuz we went into a phase of active armed conflict and then the post transition.  

But thanks to UNDP again, you stepped into a new role of democratic consolidation, peace process, constitution writing, and all that. So this ability to evolve of the host countries of the partners I think is also a testament of the trusted the valued and very much credential celebrated partnership  the that UNDP continues to enjoy in countries like ours and the rest of the developing world.  And look into the future I think this very trade will come handy, my own sense is that the nature of the development challenges has obviously changing fast with digitalisation, demography, millions of people on the move, with the disperse emerging (32:49) as a potent force of development which was not the case 25 years ago.  And I often use the 3Ds, digitalisation, demography and diaspora.  The is what (????)3300 to power, this is what I predicted 2 years ago, and this continue to be a dominant theme, as we negvagate some of the persistent challenges.  Now poverty reduction used to be a very dominant theme in the 90s in the 2000s, and that’s something to celebrate in Nepals case, with state help, with the help of international partners but largely through remittances(?)3324 In 1995, according to a world bank study, $2.18 had been used to be an international poverty line, we have 55% of the ppl below that line, and now its less than 1%, its almost eliminated.  We do this well in the development community.  When the problem is fixed, we change the bar. So now the poverty line is the middle class and $3.80 or even a higher benchmark.  So there still are people’s livelihoods to be taken care of, exploration of decent jobs, viable resources of economic growth, equity, edu, health , and other social opportunities powered by a broad base inclusive growth process, all that continues to be relevant , and we look to UNDP to reimagine its priorities, and adjust to the new development landscape.  So in terms of the nature of the problems, I feel that the global regional public goods in where UNDP can add a lot of value in terms of funding,  UNDP was always the largest multilateral-grant making organisation, that is a very fancy of saying that “we don’t have much money”, but it continues to be very valuable as we have seen in the video, seeding verycritical investments, and let somebody else come, and scale that up.  I think the itself is immensely valuable as we have known from our own experiences 
{{in development, money is not the most important issue in development. It is modes of collaboration. It is the power of convocation that UNDP enjoys, that the UN as a whole enjoys, and this cross-border issues that only institutions like UN and the UNDP that enjoy broad acceptance and legitimacy on the part of all member states of the UN.

That's unique. No other international agency can command that kind of a power of convocation. So to solve regional and global challenges, public goods, under delivery of those global public goods, UNDP continues to be well-positioned, and I'm glad to see your engagement in climate issues, democratic consolidation, youth empowerment, and digitalisation, which is again a cross-border theme, but very much rooted in the national needs.

So I would end with my endorsement of the approach that UNDP is taking, trying to adjust to the new challenges and new needs. So the three Cs, the power of convocation, build on that. I think nobody can come close to that unique legitimacy that you enjoy.

Focus even more strongly on the cross-border regional and global public goods, and sharpen your modes of collaboration, which you already continue to do, and I was happy to note, Kyoko was telling me, that a lot of mayors are in town, have joined this event, which is again a special mode of collaboration that only an entity like the UN can pull off. And I would urge you to, you know, really expedite your march in this direction. So it's been 60 glorious years of partnership that has been trusted, that has been valued, and that has been celebrated here in Nepal.

And when you celebrate your 100th year of partnership, I hope I'll still be alive. I'll just be 92 at the time, and I'll be able to join you then. So congratulations.

This is a wonderful milestone that UNDP has reached, and the people and the government of Nepal are with you, and as you are with us, and together this journey continues in a fresh new direction, a very fulfilling direction. So again, a very, very warm congratulations on this achievement. Thank you so much.

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