Risk remains despite steady poverty reduction: WB

Kathmandu / June 29: The high degree of vulnerability among the Nepali households with increased risk for every two Nepalis that have escaped poverty from falling back below the poverty line was underscored in a study released here today.

A report ‘Moving Up the Ladder: Poverty Reduction and Social Mobility in Nepal’ made public by the World Bank Group showed that 45 per cent of Nepalis who are not directly poor are vulnerable to falling into poverty.

“The recently experienced earthquake and the trade disruptions were major events,” the study reveals, adding further, “but Nepalis routinely deal with a variety of smaller but higher frequency shocks that threaten their livelihoods, erode their assets and limit their ability to invest in the human capital of children.” The report further states that protection from these dull disasters will not only safeguard welfare in the short run but also help them take more risk and be more enterprising.

Although remittance income as well as earnings from non-agro and agricultural sector has reduced poverty, the failure to sustain it has increased risk.

The poverty in Nepal has decreased by a steady rate averaging 2.2 per cent in the last two decades but 25.2 per cent of the demographic continue to remain poor, according to the report. RSS