World Bank closes fiscal year on a record high assistance

Fiscal Year 2012-13 has been a record year for the World Bank in Nepal in terms of disbursements, results and new commitments, according to the bank thyat is closing the fiscal year with $180 million in disbursement, a 25 per cent disbursement ratio exceeding target, and about $416 million in new commitments, the highest recorded for a single financial year.
“The impressive pick-up in performance benefited in the last quarter with the announcement of the full budget in April,” said World Bank country manager in Nepal Tahseen Sayed. “We look forward to early approval of the Fiscal Year 2013-14 budget and timely delegation of spending authority,” she added.
The World Bank approved seven operations including Additional Financing for the School Sector Reform Programme ($100 million); Additional Financing for the Poverty Alleviation Fund ($80 million); Additional Financing for the Agriculture Commercialisation and Trade Project ($60 million); Additional Financing for the Nepal India Electricity Trade Project ($39 million); the Nepal India Regional Trade and Transport Project ($99 million); the Kali Gandaki ‘A’ Hydro Electricity Rehabilitation Project ($27.3 million) and the Financial Sector Stabilisation Development Policy Credit ($30 million), in the past fiscal year.

“We will work with the government to focus on three core cross cutting issues during the coming year,” Sayed said, adding that they include staffing and frequency of transfers; enhancing transparency and capacity procurement and better financial management; strong monitoring including independent third party monitoring and enhanced use of social accountability tools.
The government and the World Bank signed three project agreements today for a combined value of $207.3 million. Three more project agreements valued at $168 million are expected to be signed over the next few days.

The World Bank has been a development partner to Nepal for over 50 years.  Some 18 World Bank financed projects worth about $1.5 billion are currently under various stages of implementation in the country.