The government has today signed grant agreement worth 600 million Danish Kroner (around Rs 10.8 billion) with Denmark and Pound Sterling 70 million (about Rs 11.30 billion) with the United Kingdom – making it a total of over Rs 22 billion – for peace, rights, and governance and inclusive growth proggrammes, and local governance and community development programme.
Finance secretary Shanta Raj Subedi and ambassador of Denmark to Nepal Kirsten Geelan signed two separate grant assistance agreements of a total 600 million Danish Kroner (around Rs 10.8 billion) to Nepal for the implementation of Peace, Rights and Governance (PRGP) and Inclusive Growth Programmes (Unnati) in Nepal, on behalf of their respective governments today at the Finance Ministry.
Unnati Programme will help promote sustainable, inclusive growth that reduces poverty and raises living standards of the Nepalis. “As the private sector is the engine of economic growth, the project aims to cooperate with it to achieve the goal. The total assistance to the Unnati Programme is 400 million Danish Kroner (around Rs 7.2 billion).
The five-year project that is designed to be implemented with three major components – the value chain components, infrastructure component and enabling environment component – includes the commercialisation of agriculture through selected three products like orthodox tea, ginger and dairy, emphasises on the rural transport infrastructure and stresses on the public-private dialogue and advocacy for responsible business including rights and good corporate governance.
Ministry of Agriculture Development has been designated as Lead Agency of the programme and will be implemented in partnership with Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development, Ministry of Industry, Nepal Rastra Bank and private sectors.
Likewise, fourth stage of PRGP project – that carries a purse of 200 million Danish Kroner (around Rs 3.6 billion) – aims at consolidating peace, an increased respect for human rights and the strengthening of democratic values and institutions.
The four-year programme will be implemented in partnership with Nepal Peace Trust Fund, Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development, Ministry of Law and Justice, Constituent Assembly and Parliamentary Affairs, Supreme Court, and National Human Rights Commission.
Likewise, finance secretary Subedi and head of DFID Nepal Gail Marzetti today signed another bilateral agreement on behalf of their respective governments to provide grant assistance of Pound Sterling 70 million (About Rs 11.30 billion) to Nepal for the implementation of Local Governance and Community Development Programme (LGCDP II).
The programme will be executed by the Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development and implemented by local offices of sectoral ministries and the local bodies from July 16 to July 15, 2017. The total cost of the programme is $ 1,362 million among which $236 million will be provided by Development Partners including the DFID.
The Local Governance and Community Development Programme (LGCDP II) aims at improving local governance for effective service delivery, local development and citizen empowerment through the investment in the sectors like local government restructuring, federal governance, fiscal decentralisation, fiduciary risk reduction, result based management, capacity development, social mobilisation, child friendly local governance, gender equality, social inclusion and livelihood improvement schemes in all the 75 districts, 58 Municipalities and 3,915 village development committees.