KATHMANDU, March 17 (Xinhua) -- Nepal has stressed on the need for greater investment in children to capitalize on the country's rapid and unique demographic transition and reap the maximum benefits for the future. Nepal made such call during the launch of a new report titled "Study on Demographic Changes in Nepal: Trends and Policy Implications" here on Friday.
The report has been jointly launched by National Planning Commission and UNICEF Nepal.
According to the study, Nepal has been experiencing rapid demographic changes over the last few decades as a result of declining birth and death rates, while it has an improvement in life expectancy within a relatively short span of time.
According to the study, Nepal has a finite "demographic window of opportunity" period, the number of years between the time when the percentage of working-age population vis-a-vis the total population starts to increase and the time when the same percentage starts to decrease.
During the demographic window of opportunity, the number and proportion of working-age population is particularly high compared with dependent-age population, which provides very favorable conditions for a country's socio-economic development.
Launching the report, Min Bahadur Shrestha, Vice Chairman at National Planning Commission said, "We should make prioritized investment in today's children and generations to come in a time-bound manner so that they become much more productive than today's adults by the time they grow into adults themselves. Only then can they adequately support the growing number of old-age people of the country."
Nepal is projected to transition into an "aging society" by 2028 and an "aged society" by 2054. It has been claimed that this period provides very favorable conditions for a country's socio-economic development.
The government has claimed that it is committed to making investment for children in such areas like Early Childhood Development, Health, Nutrition, Education, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, Child Protection, adolescents' development and Social Protection.
According to the latest study, the demographic window of opportunity for Nepal began around 1992 and will start to close in another 30 years around 2047. The number of years Nepal would take to transit from aging society to aged society is 26 years.
Tomoo Hozumi, UNICEF Representative to Nepal said that Nepal can cope effectively with this situation only if today's children become far more productive by the time they become adults themselves and need to support the elderly people of the society while continuously developing the society.
"Nepal requires in this context is not mere 'children in number' but children who are raised to their fullest potential to be able to move the society forward," Hozumi said.
