‘The Asia-Pacific Ministerial Dialogue: From the Millennium Development Goals to the United Nations Development Agenda beyond 2015’ was held at the United Nations Conference Centre in Thailand’s capital Bangkok from 26 to 28 August.

The Nepalese delegation was led by Dr. Rabindra Kumar Shakya, Vice Chairperson, National Planning Commission.

Heads of State, Ministers and high-level representatives from Asia and the Pacific attended the Dialogue to collectively explore and identify the key challenges in the region that should be addressed in the elaboration of the United Nations Development Agenda beyond 2015 based on the lessons learned from the MDGs framework.

According to a statement issued by the Embassy of Nepal in Thailand, the Ministerial dialogue adopted a Ministerial Declaration, and the outcome of the Dialogue would be shared with the Open Working Group of the General Assembly on Sustainable Development Goals as an input from the Asia-Pacific region. The Dialogue has recommended through its Declaration that the United Nations Development Agenda beyond 2015 should carry forward the spirit of the Millennium Declaration with a determination to build upon and further carry on the MDGs, particularly with an aim to eradicate poverty; a balanced integration of the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development; an emphasis on inclusive, equitable and sustainable development and economic growth aiming to effectively address all forms of inequalities and the factors underpinning them; a focus on the global, regional and national dimensions of sustainable development in addressing the special needs and particular challenges of the LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS, in the context of their respective plans and programmes of action, among others.

While delivering Country statement the Vice-Chairperson urged the development partners and multilateral agencies to enhance and strengthen Official Development Assistance (ODA) for LDCs. In stressing the need for additional resources for sustainable development he further urged that LDCs and LLDCs could not alone fulfill their commitments without significant international support measures to achieve the goals of Istanbul Programmes of Action (IPOA) and Almaty Programmes of Action for Sustainable Development. He also highlighted some noteworthy progresses of Nepal in some major targets of MDGs, including reducing poverty, reducing stunting of children under five years of age, reducing infant and child, maternal mortality rates and achieving gender parity in primary school enrolment among others. He also informed that Nepal had set the perspective vision to graduate from the status of LDCs to that of a developing country by 2022.

Vice Chairman Shakya had chaired the 3rd and 4th Sessions on Policy Issues and adoption of Declaration respectively. Other members of the Nepali delegation were Mr. Pushpa Lal Shakya, Joint Secretary, National Planning Commission Secretariat, Mr. Dornath Aryal, Charge’ d’ Affaires a.i. the Embassy of Nepal, Bangkok and Mr. Ananda Prasad Sharma, Under Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs.