NGOs unhappy with new government policy

KATHMANDU:

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) operating in the country have said that the Development Cooperation Policy 2014 has failed to accept them as real development partners. They said so today underlining the hurdles and weaknesses of the policy.

The Ministry of Finance (MoF) in June this year had endorsed the policy aiming to better channelise foreign aid, ensure its effective use and regulate NGOs and INGOs. It requires the NGOs and INGOs to report about their funding and projects to MoF.

Addressing a discussion programme on the policy, Sarmila Karki, president of NGO Federation of Nepal, said the new policy should have harmonised foreign aid management rather than creating hurdles for the NGOs. The NGO federation said the policy posed many practical problems in works of development partners.

Lal Bahadur Khatri, undersecretary of the MoF, on the other hand, said that aid should reach the beneficiaries through the government channel and not under direct project implementation by INGOs and NGOs, who are receiving support from bilateral donors.

“We wanted to engage NGOs and INGO as project implementing partners, but they should not go for direct implementation.”

MoF is also carrying out a study on the inflow of funds, where they are going and how they are being utilised. In recent years, aid transparency has been a challenge, particularly for aid resources that have been implemented by NGOs and INGOs or directly by development partners, while full reporting on these resources has been lacking, as per the policy.

Deepak Raj Sapkota, president of Association of International NGOs in Nepal, said issues related to NGOs and INGOs were mixed in the policy. “We would encourage both to be treated separately and INGOs have proactively reported on its resources,” he said.

Source : THT