cover image: DEVELOPMENT PAPERS 22-03

20.500.12592/t82n06

DEVELOPMENT PAPERS 22-03

30 Apr 2022

In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, graduating LDCs are forced to deal with the twin challenges of shrinking revenues due to wide-spread disruptions to economic activities on the one hand, and increased health and social sector spending commitments raised by the pandemic on the other hand. [...] While the public and the private sector are expected to contribute over 90 percent of the investment requirements, remittances have increased the ability of a certain segment of households to bear a part of the required expenditure on SDGs. [...] GoN's assessment of progress towards the SDGs during 2016-2019 (NPC, 2020) finds that in contrast to the target of increasing ODA as a proportion of the national budget between 2015 and 2019, the share actually declined to 11.2 percent (against the target of 15.8 percent for 2019 and 18 percent for 2030). [...] Using data on the sectoral utilization of aid from the Economic Survey (GoN, 2021), we find that in this period, the volume of ODA remained almost the same as in the same period in the previous fiscal year. [...] 63 Based on year 2019 data Nepal moved out of the low-income country group of the World Bank to join the lower-middle income group in 2020.64 In the wake of Covid-19, Nepal's GNI per capita fell in 2020 but was high65 enough to be in the lower-middle income category in the 2021 classification.66 The income level was, however, US$15 lower than the cut-off income (for 2022) for continued eligibility.
Pages
46
Published in
Thailand