Pvt sector, civil society to take part in NPPR

KATHMANDU, APR 16 -

The Nepal Portfolio Performance Review (NPPR), an exclusive club where government officials and donors gather to review the performance of aid projects, will include the private sector and civil society organizations for the first time.

The Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI), the Federation of Contractors’ Associations of Nepal (FCAN), civil society organizations, domestic non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and international

non-governmental organizations (INGOs) will be invited to join the upcoming meet scheduled to be held on April 23 in Kathmandu, said Finance Ministry officials.

“As the private sector and NGOs also have been an important part of development initiatives in the country, it was felt necessary to bring them into the NPPR where the challenges of development activities are discussed,” said Kailash Raj Pokharel, under secretary at the International Economic Cooperation Coordination Division at the Finance Ministry. “For example, contractors are important components to decide whether a certain project is completed on time or not, and NGOs and INGOs have also been active in carrying out development activities throughout the country.” A majority of development projects are implemented through contractors as little budget funds are spent through consumer groups.Pokharel, who has been looking after NPPR affairs at the ministry for a long time, said that the Busan Meet on aid effectiveness had made a similar recommendation.

Recognizing the role of the private sector in advancing innovation and creating wealth, income and jobs, mobilizing domestic resources and in turn contributing to poverty reduction, the Busan Declaration on Aid Effectiveness held in 2011 urged including the private sector in national development discourse.

The declaration also pledged to allow civil society organizations to exercise their roles as independent development actors in recognition of their vital role in enabling people to shape development policies and partnership. Newly-elected FNCCI President Pradeep Jung Pandey welcomed the ministry’s decision to invite the private sector to NPPR. “As the private sector is involved in various infrastructure projects, including hydropower, there is a

need for solving problems in these projects like in those funded by the government,” he said.

Besides incorporating the private sector and civil society organizations, the new NPPR meet will discuss “development effectiveness” instead of “aid effectiveness” as it has been doing in the past. The aim is to address the problems seen in the entire range of development projects as they are similar.

In recent years, developments projects have not been started or completed on time. As a result, development expenditure has been slow. In donor-funded projects, the pace of expenditure has been even more sluggish.

According to the latest 51st Annual Report of the Office of the Auditor General, 56 percent of the development projects had their contracts extended in the last fiscal year as they could not finish on time. A more notable trend revealed by the report is that most of these projects had their time limits extended to double their original term.

In the current fiscal year too, only 77.14 percent of grants and 49.18 percent of loans are expected to be spent. While expenditure of foreign aid has been slow in development activities, most of the donor-funded projects have spent 4.40 percent to 24.50 percent of their outlay on consultants, said the OAG report.

Given the low expenditure of foreign aid in development projects, Pokharel said that the NPPR would be an ideal place to discuss the problems being faced by donor-funded projects.

Meanwhile, Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC) is also taking part in the NPPR for the first time. With the inclusion of SDC, 12 donors will be represented at the meet.

“These donors account for 80 percent of the total foreign aid Nepal receives,” said Pokharel. During last year’s meet, 11 donor agencies, namely the World Bank, ADB, USAID, Norway, JICA, IFAD, EU, DFID, DANIDA, AusAid and UN Country Team (Nepal) took part.

Source: The Kathmandu Post