welcome

News & Events



05 Nov 2010
Report paints bleak picture of Nepali kids

Report paints bleak picture of Nepali kids

More than a third of Nepal's 12.6 million children live below the national poverty line as stated by Nepal Report 2010, Child Poverty and Disparities in Nepal.

The report is released by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in collaboration with National Planning Commission (NPC) on Thursday.

The report further states that two-thirds of Nepal's children are severely deprived and forty percent live in absolute poverty due to a decade long civil war and political instability. The leading child deprivation in Nepal is lack of sanitation. Measured by the absence of a toilet of any kind, over half of Nepal's children (55.7 percent or 6.4 million) defecate in open spaces with obvious implications for the spread of diseases. Similarly, malnutrition is a severe problem with half of Nepal's children under the age of five, stunned (50 percent) and over two-thirds underweight (41 percent). Apart from that, 69 percent Nepali children are deprived of at least one of seven basic human needs-sanitation, information, shelter, water, food, education and health.

According to Will Parks, deputy representative of UNICEF, malnutrition and sanitation are the major obstacles for the survival, growth and development of children. "This poverty and disparity can be reduced or eliminated through resource allocation to child sensitive social protection initiatives and placing the children issues in the centre of national development goal," Parks said.

Similarly, Bandana Rana, president of SAATHI, stated this is a prime time for our nation to invest in our future generations and in our future mothers. On the same occasion, Jagadish Chandra Pokhrel, vice chairman of the NPC, committed to bring the children on the country's main development agenda and to give special attention to nutrition, sanitation and poverty to improve the child poverty situation.



Major Indicators
33% children live below poverty line
40% children deprived of 2 out of 7 basic human needs
55.7% children defecate in open spaces
41% rural children are underweight, 50% stunted
Under-5 mortality rate: 65/1000 live births
Infant mortality rate: 51/1000 live births
Over 83% children are covered by all vaccines