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| Kathmandu, Thursday April 25, 2002 Baishakh 12, 2059. |
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ODA continues to grow
Post Report
KATHMANDU, April 24 : Despite the ongoing
security problem and pessimistic outcome of the running development projects, the inflow
of Official Development Assistance (ODA), during the first nine months of the current
fiscal year, continued to register an impressive growth as compared to the same period
last year.
According to statistics and disseminated by the
Foreign Aid Co-ordination Division at the Ministry of Finance, the overall flow of ODA to
Nepal during the period touched Rs 31.74 billion whereas such figure for the whole of the
last fiscal year was Rs 30.92 billion.
While analysing the composition of the total ODA
received, grant assistance continued to surpass loan assistance. During the period, Nepal
received Rs 21.85 billion of grant assistance while the loan assistance amount was only Rs
9.89 billion.
Projectwise analysis shows that the Master Plan
Operation 2002-06 attracted the largest amount of grant assistance during the period,
pushing down the Melamchi Water Supply Project (MWSP) to the second position. The amount
of grant assistance from the UNICEF was Rs 5.62 billion.
MWSP, however, continued to remain as the other
dominant project to attract the second largest amount in loans and aid commitments. During
the period, the project alone gathered Rs 5.52 billion loan and grant assistance
commitments from donors.
Similarly, with Rs 4.48 billion grant assistance
from the government of USA, Reduced Fertility and Protected Health Project became the
third largest foreign-funded project followed by 2.28 billion loan assistance from the
Asian Development Bank for Governance Reform Project.
In the like manner, while categorising bilateral
donorwise loan and grant commitments, the USA became the largest donor followed by Japan
and Norway. During the period, the government of United States extended grant assistance
worth Rs 5.9 billion for four development projects.
The government of Japan extended grant
assistance worth Rs 4.78 billion for eight various projects to secure the second position
while with the total assistance of Rs 2.59 billion for two projects, Norway was ranked as
the third largest donor. Of the total Norwegian assistance, Rs 1.91 billion was received
as grant assistance while the rest Rs 675.9 million as loan.
The Government of Sweden stood as the fourth
largest donor, which during the period extended grant and loan assistance worth Rs 1.96
billion for two projects related with Melamchi Water Supply Project.
Similarly, among the multilateral donor
agencies, UNICEF became the largest multilateral donor to top the list. During the nine
months period, UNICEF extended grant assistance worth Rs 5.62 billion for Master Plan
Operation 2002-06 project. ADB, which was the largest multilateral donor till the first
half of the current fiscal year, extended loan and grant assistance worth Rs 3.84 billion
for three projects. Of the total amount, Rs 3.78 billion was committed as loan while Rs
60.68 million as grant assistance.
IFAD became the third largest multilateral donor
by providing Rs 1.53 billion loan and grant assistance for the Western Upland Poverty
Alleviation project followed by OPEC’s loan assistance worth Rs 1.02 billion for
MWSP.
Similarly, sectoral analysis shows education the
largest sector, which absorbed Rs 7.63 billion grant and loan assistance from the donors
followed by health and other sectors. During the period, health sector absorbed Rs 5.46
billion foreign assistance while other sectors absorbed grant assistance worth Rs 4.63
billion.
Notwithstanding with the slow pace in improving
the much-needed weak implementation and swelling fiscal unbalances resultant of
skyrocketing regular expenditures, the present flow of ODA seems highly encouraging. But,
it is high time the government fulfilled its commitment by speeding up reforms. The budget
for the current fiscal year has estimated to accumulate Rs 30.54 billion of foreign loans
and grants to finance the ever-distancing mismatch between the total expenditure and
internal revenue.
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