The World
Bank has approved $150 million in financing for two projects designed to help
improve connectivity and raise agricultural productivity across rural Nepal.
The Project
for Strengthening the National Rural Transport Programme intends to enhance the
availability and reliability of transport connectivity for communities in 33
participating districts.
It will help
these districts upgrade, rehabilitate and maintain rural transport
infrastructure for all-weather movement and promote closer monitoring by
beneficiaries as well as civil society and private sector organizations.
The project
will benefit more than half of Nepal’s population.
The Central
Bureau of Statistics (CBS) estimates that nearly a quarter of the population in
these districts is poor. The World Bank approved $100 million in financing for the
project, which is the World Bank’s third operation in support of Nepal’s rural
transport sector in the past 15 years.
It also
approved $50 million in additional financing for the Irrigation and Water
Resources Management Project, under implementation since December 2007. The new
resources will help rehabilitate 80 additional farmer-managed irrigation
schemes (FMIS) in the 40 districts of the western, mid-western and far-western regions
and maintain support for the management transfer of four agency-managed
irrigation schemes (AMIS) to Water Users' Associations.
It will also support agriculture extension services to help farmers benefit
from better water management and the development of our river basin plans.
To date, the
project is on target to rehabilitate 130 schemes covering about 20,000 hectares
by June 2014. It has achieved productivity increases of between 25 per cent and
75 per cent in rice, wheat, maize and potato crops. The 80 additional schemes
will cover another 6,900 hectares.
"By
improving connectivity and raising agriculture productivity, these two projects
aim to spur economic growth and reduce poverty across rural Nepal,” said the
World Bank’s country director for Nepal Johannes Zutt. "They will build on
lessons learnt over several decades of our partnership with Nepal in these
sectors,” he added.
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