Kathmandu: Prime Minister Sushila Karki emphasized that it is the responsibility of the State to protect and promote inclusion, social justice, and cultural and lingual diversity. Inaugurating the 26th Board Meeting of the National Foundation for Development of Indigenous Nationalities, PM Karki commended the Foundation’s contributions in ensuring recognition, rights, culture, and overall development of the indigenous communities across the country.
According to National News Agency Nepal, Karki expressed her confidence that the decisions, guidelines, and policy recommendations from the meeting would be relevant for the effective implementation of the national policies. She was hopeful that the meeting would provide a clear direction for institutional strengthening, effectiveness of programs, policy recommendations based on research, documentation and protection of mother languages of various ethnic communities, and sustainable socio-economic empowerment of the indigenous communities in the country.
The Head of the interim government informed that the government had been providing the Foundation with policy and structural reforms and budgets to effectively enforce the Foundation’s programs. Emphasizing the need to further enhance cooperation among development partners, civil societies, local government, and local communities to achieve the goals of inclusive development, PM Karki articulated the government’s readiness to facilitate the same.
Furthermore, the PM reiterated that it is the responsibility of both the government and the general public to implement the core components of the Constitution such as republic, federalism, secularism, and inclusiveness to secure the welfare of all indigenous communities. She also urged effective enforcement of the provisions guaranteed by the constitution to transform diversity into national unity as well as to protect the cultural rights of the indigenous communities.
On a different note, PM Karki expressed the government’s commitment to revise laws in line with Supreme Court’s directives, the International Labour Organization’s Convention 169, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. According to her, the formation of constitutional commissions like Indigenous Commission and Tharu Commission had played vital roles in the protection and promotion of the rights of the aboriginal communities.
She called for mutual cooperation and coordination between constitutional bodies and the Foundation to achieve common goals. The first woman PM observed that demands raised in the Gen Z movement such as good governance, prosperity, and an end to nepotism and favoritism were urgent for inclusive development and social justice.
The PM, who also led the Supreme Court as the first woman Chief Justice of the country, asserted that development based on equal access and participation of all classes and communities is the only sustainable form of development, which she argued would further reinforce the nation.