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Foreign aid pledge dips 23pc
KATHMANDU, JAN 22 - Amid growing socio-economic tensions, fuelled mainly by the ongoing Maoist violence and political confusions, commitment of Official Development Assistance (ODA) from multilateral and bilateral donor countries and agencies dipped by over 23 per cent during first half of the running fiscal year.
The multilateral and bilateral donors pledged Rs 13.59 billion whereas such commitment during the same period last year was Rs 17.75 billion.
According to statistics compiled by the Foreign Aid Co-ordination Division at the Ministry of Finance, unlike the past trend, a large chunk of the total committed ODA, cumulating to Rs 7.32 billion, came in the form of loans making almost 54 per cent of the total commitment. The grant component of the total aid was Rs 6.27 billion.
While analysing sector-wise, the largest pie of the aid commitment has gone to the other sector, for which donors have pledged a total of Rs 6.59 billion – Rs 5.18 billion in loans and Rs 1.41 billion in grants under eight different headings. The only loan assistance of the sector came from the World Bank for budgetary support followed by grant assistance of Rs 500 million from the government of India for Small Scale Project.
Similarly, in terms of volume of committed amount, water supply sector emerged as the second largest sector. The sector, during the period, received a total commitment of Rs 1.94 billion for two different projects. The largest project of the sector was Community Based Water Supply and Sanitation Project, which received a loan commitment of Rs 1.77 billion from the Asian Development Bank.
Improvement of Kathmandu Water Supply Facilities, with the Japanese grant assistance worth Rs 174.2 million, was the other project of the sector.
Likewise, science and technology sector secured third position in terms of volume of aid commitment. Altogether, the sector received a commitment worth Rs 1.34 billion for four different projects. Of the projects in this sector, a grant assistance worth Rs 640.32 million received from government of Germany for Biogas Support Program Phase II, was largest project in terms of volume.
Another German support for Renewal Energy worth Rs 523.87 million was the second largest project of the sector followed by Norwegian grant assistance for Rural Electrification and Micro Hydel Development Project.
Similarly, power sector secured aid commitment worth Rs 1.08 million, whereas governance and women, children and social welfare sector received Rs 769.7 million and Rs 484.4 million respectively.Posted on: 2004-01-23 03:22
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