Foreign aids blamed for making the country dependent

Bishnu Prasad Aryal
Kathmandu, November 2

Dependency of Nepal on foreign aids for development activities is blamed for barring the country from utilising its own resources. Despite innumerable international projects of the local development in the nation, the achievement is criticised as not satisfactory.

“It is good for the country that international donors have been assisting us in various development programmes and teaching us how to work in the local level,” said Dinesh Kumar Thapaliya, spokesperson for the Ministry of Local Development. “However, we will be disappointed if we analyse the achievement of the international aids,” he added.

Thapaliya said  the culture of foreign aids  has made the country be dependent on others instead of learning from them and tapping own resources available in the country for the development. “We have developed a bad culture of dependency on them. On the other hand, innumerable foreign projects are implemented in all the 75 districts of the country but the number of beneficiaries is very few,” he added.

According to the MoLD, the foreign aided projects are supporting in 26 programmes out of 43 programmes on infrastructure, roads, drinking water, electricity and social development in the local level. Rs 35.69 billion has been allocated for the MoLD in the current fiscal year. Among them, Nepal Government bears Rs 23.90 billion, foreign grants account to Rs 9.99 billion while foreign loan credits to Rs 1.7 billion.

This is the annual ratio of foreign aids allocated for the local development, said Indu Ghimire, joint-spokesperson for the MoLD. “However, we don’t have any special records of development progress from the foreign aids,” Ghimire said. “Neither, the National Planning Commission nor the Ministry of Finance has maintained the amount of total foreign aids given to Nepal and development statistics,” she added.

UN Supported Projects [Local Governance Community Development Program (LGCDP) (basket funding by UNDP, Norway and other donors) – 75 districts, Rural Urban Partnership Program (RUPP) – 30 municipalities, Community Owned Primary Education (COPE) – 6 Districts and 10 –municipalities, Public Private Partnership for Urban Environment (PPPUE) – 10 municipalities, Decentralized Action for Children and Women (DACAW) – 15 districts, Population and Reproductive Health Integrated Project (PARHI) - 6 districts]

IFAD funded Projects [Western Uplands Poverty Alleviation Project (WUPAP) – 8 districts]

WFP/ GTZ/DFID supported Projects [Rural Community Infrastructure Works Program (RCIW) – 25 districts, Municipalities Periodic Planning, Poverty Reduction and Social Inclusion (Udle/GTZ) – 21 municipalities]

World Bank Funded Project [ Rural Access Improvement and Decentralize Program (RAIDP) – 20 districts]

Asian Development Bank funded projects [Decentralized Rural Infrastructure and Livelihood Project (DRILP) – 20 districts, Governance Reform Program (GRP) – at the center level]

SWISS Development Cooperation Supported Projects [Trail Bridge Sub Sector Program (TBSSP) – 60 districts, District Road Support Program (DRSP) – 6 districts, LILY, LISP (Helvetas)]

Finland Supported Projects [Rural Village Water Resource Management Project (RVWRMP) -9 districts, Strengthening Environmental Administration and Management at Local Level –Nepal (SEAM-N) – 2 districts and 3 municipalities]

Thapaliya also said that the coverage of a foreign programme limits to construction of 30-40Km of trail and track roads in 3-5 years of period in 4-5 village development committees. “Every year, the same road is repeatedly made, which is the misuse of loans,” he said. “About 15 per cent of their assistance is spent on paying their technicians. They never insist on hiring Nepali technicians.”

Requesting anonymity, a representative from the prominent donor agency among all admitted the ineffectiveness of foreign grants, increasing dependency on others, misuse of development budget. “We are working amidst many problems and want to work on the government leadership. We have taken it seriously and preparing to develop a stronger mechanism to check corruption,” he added.