Last year, in a move portrayed as a step toward increased country ownership, Nepal introduced a new aid policy that aims to minimize fragmentation of assistance from donors. High dispersion of aid, after all, leads to increased project transaction costs and less effective management of projects, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Not everyone welcomed the policy. Nepal’s local nongovernmental organizations, whose funding usually comes from foreign donors, opposed the government’s supposed solution to aid fragmentation.
Meanwhile, some see the policy as a rather insufficient attempt at managing aid. George Varughese, the Asia Foundation’s country representative for Nepal, told Devex that such a policy will work “if the government is capable of directing donors to needy sectors in a way that is least politicized and most effective.”
About the author
Anna Patricia Valerio
Anna Patricia Valerio is a former Manila-based development analyst who focused on writing innovative, in-the-know content for senior executives in the international development community. Before joining Devex, Patricia wrote and edited business, technology and health stories for BusinessWorld, a Manila-based business newspaper.
