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Kathmandu Saturday January 19, 2002 Magh 06 2058.
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ODA grows by more than twofold
Post Report
KATHMANDU, Jan 18 : Despite the shrinking global
flow of Official Development Assistance (ODA) and contracting global economy, the inflow
of ODA into Nepal, during the first half of the current year, continued to register an
impressive more than 2 fold increment as compared to the same period last year.
According to statistics compiled by the
Foreign Aid Co-ordination Division at the Ministry of Finance, the overall flow of ODA
into Nepal during the period touched Rs 19.93 billion whereas such figure for the last
year was just Rs 7.64 billion.
While analysing the composition of the total
ODA received, one of the significant factors is that grant assistance continued to surpass
loan assistance. During the period, Nepal received a total of a Rs 14.8 billion of grant
assistance while the loan assistance amount was only Rs 5.12 billion.
On project-wise analysis, Melamchi Water
Supply Project (MWSP) continued to remain as the dominant project to attract the largest
amount of loans and aid commitments. During the period, the project alone gathered Rs 5.52
billion in loan and grant assistance commitments from donors against Rs 634.3 million
assistance absorbed during the same period last year.
Similarly, with Rs 4.48 billion grant
assistance from the US government, Reduced Fertility and Protected Health project stood as
the second largest project of the period whereas Governance Reform Programme project,
which received loan assistance worth Rs 2.25 billion from the Asian Development Bank, was
listed in the third position.
In the like manner, while categorising
bilateral donor-wise loan and grant commitments, the USA became the largest donor followed
by Japan and Norway. During the period, the government of United States extended a grant
assistance worth Rs 5.9 billion for three development projects.
The government of Japan extended a grant
assistance worth Rs 4.71 billion for seven 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 rest Rs 675.9 million as a loan assistance.
The government of Sweden stood as the fourth
largest donor, which during the period extended a grant and loan assistance worth Rs 1.96
billion for two projects related with Melamchi Water Supply Project.
Similarly, among the multilateral donor
agencies, ADB continued to top the list. During the period, ADB extended loan and grant
assistance worth Rs 2.34 billion for two projects. Of the total amount, Rs 2.28 billion
was committed as the loan while rest Rs 60.68 million as grant assistance.
Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries
(OPEC) became the second largest multilateral donor by providing Rs 1.02 billion loan
assistance for the MWSP while International Labour Organisation (ILO) extended a grant
assistance worth Rs 262.7 million for Sustainable Elimination of Bonded Labour and become
the third largest multilateral donor.
Similarly, while analysing sector wise, water
resources has become the largest sector, which absorbed Rs 6.14 billion grant and loan
assistance from the donors followed by health and other sectors. During the period, health
sector drew Rs 5.46 billion foreign assistance while other sectors absorbed grant
assistance worth Rs 4.56 billion
Notwithstanding with the slow pace of the
much-needed financial sector reforms and growing fiscal unbalances mainly due to the
soaring regular expenditures, the present flows of ODA seems highly encouraging. It is
high time the government speeded up the financial sector reform to maintain the growing
support of the donor countries and agencies for which they have been pressing the
government since long.
The budget for the current fiscal year, so far,
has been 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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