The National Poverty Eradication Programme (NPEP) has been renamed by the Government of the Lao PDR in order to avoid confusion with the 8 national programmes and to better reflect its true substance. This decision was based on suggestions of the National Assembly and other national stakeholders. The new name adopted after internal consultations is the National Growth and Poverty Eradication Strategy (NGPES).The NGPES is the strategic framework under which all of the Government’s future growth and poverty eradication programmes will be developed and implemented. The NGPES is the result of a process that started in 1996 when the 6th Party Congress defined the long-term development objective as freeing the country from the status of least-developed country (LDC) by 2020.
