Kathmandu, Sept 4 .The European Union (EU), Governments of Switzerland, Norway and the United Kingdom, Nepal’s development partners, have agreed to provide a grant assistance of 100 million US Dollar, equivalent to Rs 11.4 billion to implement the Provincial and Local Governance Support Programme ( PLGSP).
The project aims to strengthen the capacity of provincial and local governments to deliver public service in a more effective and efficient way. This project is expected to ensure to attain functional, sustainable, inclusive and accountable provincial and local governance by maximizing benefits of cooperative federalism for Nepali citizenry. It will conclude in four fiscal years commencing from July 2019/20 and wrapping up in July 2022/23.
An agreement to this effect was signed and exchanged between the Government of Nepal and development partners, collectively referred to as the Joint Financing Agreement (JFA) development partners today at the Ministry of Finance, Kathmandu.
Important activities listed under the project are Innovation and Partnership Fund, Local Policy, Strategy, Guidelines, Framework & Institutional Development, Capacity Development Programme (Province and Local Level), and Public Financial Management (PMF) for the implementation of SUTRA and Local PFM. The project is expected to be a landmark project in incapacitating the sub-national governments by bridging the existing gap among three level of governance system.
The JFA was signed by Shree Krishna Nepal, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Finance, and Matthew John Rycroft, Permanent Secretary, Department for International Development (DFID), Lasse Bjorn Johannessen, Ambassador, Norwegian Embassy in Nepal and Elisabeth Von Capeller, Ambassador, Swiss Embassy in Nepal, on behalf of their respective Governments. The European Union will sign the JFA in the days to come.
The Government of Nepal has expressed its appreciation to the European Union, Governments of the United Kingdom, Norway and Switzerland for providing such generous financial support for this program and for the trusted partnership in strengthening the Sub-national Governance.
