According to MoFA Spokesperson Arjun Bahadur Thapa, who was part of the Nepali delegation that attended the eighth session, the EU will determine the amount of assistance after reviewing different areas of cooperation. [break]
“The EU has assured us that it will increase development assistance to the least developed countries despite a reduction in its overall official development assistance,” he said.
The EU has been supporting Nepal in various sectors including election, peace building, education, public finance management, trade and in strengthening the private sector. During the meeting on July, the Nepali side had sought EU investments in five priority areas including energy, agriculture, civil aviation, tourism and in infrastructure development.
Thapa said the EU has agreed to make on-budget support to Nepal from this year. The umbrella body of the European countries was making off-budget support to Nepal in nearly 60 different projects it is currently implementing in Nepal.
The EU had allocated 120 million euro in development aid to Nepal for the period between 2007 and 2013. The assistance amount is being used in three broad areas, including education, peace building and trade and capacity development.
Ever since the EU and Nepal reached a framework agreement in 1996, the two sides have been holding joint commission meeting every two years. The last such meeting was held in Kathmandu in 2010.
During the meeting, Nepal had asked the EU to make a separate structural arrangement to support LDCs. The EU has announced to follow a differentiated approach to support LDCs from 2014 to 2020, according to Thapa.
Nepalese delegation also held bilateral meeting with the officials of European Development Bank, among others, before returning home on Saturday. “In response to our request for investments in priority sectors, a project appraisal mission of the bank is visiting in Nepal in September,” Thapa further said.
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