Effective monitoring must for fruitful execution

Budget execution and monitoring, accounting system, lack of human resource and motivation of civil servants, lack of understanding of the role of various actors in reviewing and assessment of aid effectiveness have hit the development activities hard, according to Nepal Portfolio Performance Review 2011 (NPPR) meeting — a key dialogue mechanism between the government and its donor partners — organised here today.
"Budget execution follows elaborate and complex process and monitoring of the implementation process is weak," the review said, adding that the pace of expenditure is uneven, with 60 per cent of spending taking place in the last two months, especially in the development budget.
Finance secretary Krishna Hari Baskota, on the occasion, shared that the government is revising Foreign Aid Policy in the changed context. "But, aid commitment is not enough, we need to improve programme performance and increase aid disbursement, he added.
Foreign aid plays an important role in the country's socio-economic development and it has contributed 26 per cent to the budget for the fiscal year 2010-11, he said, adding that over the last one decade Nepal has made significant efforts to ensure aid effectiveness.
Similarly, finance minister Barsha Man Pun stressed on importance of donors support in budget.
Nepal Portfolio Performance Review (NPPR) meeting has become the annual platform for the donors and government to interact face to face on development issues after the government owned it since 2006. This year's meeting will discuss on five issues; Human resource management, public finance management, procurement, MfDR and mutual accountability.
The donors and related ministries will brainstorm on the selected issues in groups and draw an action plan for the better coordination of aid to make it more effective."The meeting will help address bottlenecks in development activities' progress and effectively monitor the aid apart from alignment in national system and mutual accountability," according to Foreign Aid Department chief of Finance Ministry Lal Shanker Ghimire.
Similarly, JICA Nepal — one of the partners of NPPR since its beginning — chief representative Mitsuyoshi Kawasaki said that achieving full compliance of annually planned actions is still a challenge. "All the policies or programmes designed are either not implemented fully or the changes not measured," he said, urging to focus and lead towards full compliance of what is committed.
On the occasion, the development partners raised question on government's view on Common Results Framework to align donors' work, long term plan, Foreign Aid Policy review and Busan meeting on aid effectiveness that Nepal is also taking part in November end.
Similarly, 2011 Survey on Monitoring the Paris Declaration-Nepal Country Report has recommended donors to reduce and streamline conditionality as far as possible to enhance ownership and leadership of the government.