Governance | Peace process | Health | HIV/AIDS | Education | Infrastructure | Forestry/agriculture
DFID Nepal has demonstrated its ability to deliver aid in a time of conflict and in the current fragile context. Our contribution to bilateral assistance has risen from £14 million in 1999 to over £58 million in 2008/09. Our strategy for development assistance to Nepal is contained in the DFID Nepal Interim Country Assistance Plan.
The 2008 election has provided significant opportunities for development. The government's agenda resonates with ours in many ways, but many risks remain.
Poor governance is a key cause of poverty and conflict in Nepal, and since 1998, DFID has given $60 million towards improving ‘pro-poor’ governance there. The Enabling State Programme supports a number of satellite programmes focused on:
The Decentralised Financing and Development Project (DFDP), which we supported and which ended in July 2008, gave block grants to local bodies to enable them to provide basic services to poorer communities. The system it developed of allocating resources on the basis of performance is now being used more broadly by the government. We will also be co-funding the DFDP’s successor, the Local Governance and Community Development Programme (LGCDP), a multi-donor initiative with the Ministry of Local Development.
Supporting the work of the constituent assembly is also one of our priorities. In 2005, DFID Nepal and three other donors launched the three-year Rights, Democracy and Inclusion Fund (RDIF), which has given a total of about £2.35 million to some 22 projects and ended in December 2008. It helped Nepali institutions working to improve the sustainability of democracy through education, helping communities to help themselves, and institutional reform. Promoting political inclusion of disadvantaged groups at both national and sub-national levels was another of its goals.
Peace, stability and security are vital for the reduction of poverty in Nepal in the long term. In 2007-08, DFID dedicated 20% of its expenditure to support the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the Maoists and the government. The CPA called for the establishment of an interim constituent assembly, government and constitution, and for a decision on the fate of the monarchy. These were all achieved by May 2008. However, only mixed progress has been made on re-establishing law and order, improving respect for human rights, providing transitional justice and managing arms and armies.
DFID works very closely with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and Ministry of Defence (MoD) in its peace-support work in Nepal. Some of this is jointly funded through the UK’s Conflict Prevention Pool, a cross-government fund for peace-building and conflict resolution. We have also contributed to other programmes:
DFID has invested $100 million in Nepal’s health sector over the past five years, dividing it between the Nepal Health Sector Programme and the Support to the Safe Motherhood Programme (see below). This has contributed to some impressive gains in public health in the last decade:
Long-term investment in Nepal’s health sector and our combined efforts have helped to implement the Free Health Care Policy, in response to an expressed desire of the poor and excluded groups.
Support to the Safe Motherhood Programme (SSMP):The five-year SSMP, which is supported by DFID with a budget of $40 million, is the lead donor programme supporting the national safe motherhood and neonatal programme. It works closely with the Ministry of Health and Population to improve maternal and newborn health and survival, especially for the poor and excluded, through the delivery of and access to quality health services - including human resources, infrastructure investments, equipment and supplies - for mothers and newborns, plus comprehensive abortion care. Read about DFID-funded refresher training for primary care workers on R4D.
Safe Delivery Incentives Programme:High cost has been a major barrier to many women accessing maternity care in Nepal, especially in rural areas. To mitigate this, the government of Nepal and DFID launched the Safe Delivery Incentives Programme in 2005, to provide financial incentives to women and to health workers who assist with deliveries. The programme, initiated countrywide as a government priority, reached poor and marginalised women in Nepal.
In January 2009 the Government of Nepal introduced free delivery care in health facilities - a policy that DFID was instrumental in developing and implementing.
HIV/AIDS is currently a concentrated epidemic (70,000 people), predominantly found among drug users and mobile populations. There is a risk, however, that it will become a generalised epidemic by the end of the decade.
DFID is providing $30 million over five years (2005–2010) in support of the government’s HIV/AIDS programme. Through the UN Development Programme, we’re supporting 119 projects in 35 districts to provide comprehensive packages of care to male sex workers, men having sex with men (MSM), intravenous drug users (IDUs) and mobile populations. This has resulted in:
Education is one of the highest priorities for the poor and excluded in Nepal, who now have rapidly rising expectations for better government delivery following the peace agreement.
DFID has committed an estimated $40 million over five years to enable the government to implement its ‘Education for All’ programme through 2015. Our support, along with $230 million from other donors, has already helped to achieve greatly increased enrolment rates - from 84.2% in 2004 to 91.1% in 2008 - involving equal numbers of boys and girls. Drop-out rates at grade 4 are high, but the percentage of those staying on to the end of primary school is slowly improving - by one percentage point in 2007. In 2007/8 the programme constructed 4,670 new classes (and rehabilitated 1,846) and improved facilities in 2,372 schools to include latrines, drinking water and fences.
DFID has contributed an estimated $100 million over ten years to support Nepal’s infrastructure. This has resulted in:
Two of our initiatives - Rural Access Programme and Rural Community Infrastructure Works - have delivered 800 kilometres of rural roads and 8.2 million days of employment to 35,000 poor and excluded households.
We are now working with the government and other donors on a joint initiative worth $150 million that, it is hoped, will deliver essential infrastructure in 38 of Nepal’s 75 districts. It will also create the conditions for a sector-wide approach in infrastructure by building capacity, particularly at the local level.
DFID is providing $34 million over ten years to promote enhanced livelihood opportunities and thereby reduce the vulnerability of many of Nepal’s rural poor.
The Livelihoods and Forestry Programme reaches 18% of Nepal’s people, many of whom are particularly poor and excluded. It promotes:
Since its launch in 2001 the programme has reduced the vulnerability of 3 million people and has substantially lifted 50,000 families out of poverty.
Agriculture is a mainstay of the economy, providing livelihoods for some 80% of the population and accounting for 30% of the gross domestic product (GDP). DFID has provided $18 million over six years (2003–08) to help implement the government’s Agriculture Perspective Plan. We have supported policy formulation, planning and monitoring centrally and, at a local level, provided assets and inputs to the rural poor and excluded. So far, this has directly benefited more than 500,000 people and is likely to benefit a further 300,000 by its end.
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