Kathmandu, February 29

The government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, acting through the Department for International Development (DFID), have agreed to provide a grant assistance of $21 million (equivalent to Rs 2.3 billion) to the government of Nepal for implementation of Nepal Evidence for Development Programme.

In this regard, the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the government of Nepal and the government of the United Kingdom was signed today at the Ministry of Finance (MoF), as per a media release issued today.

The goal of the Nepal Evidence for Development Programme (E4D) is to strengthen the culture of evidence use in Nepal, in particular to improve evidence-based policy and decision making, to ensure that poor people will be targeted more effectively with public funds and support. The programme will support Nepal government’s objectives around graduation from least developed country (LDC) status by 2022, and progress against the set of recently agreed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The National Planning Commission (NPC) — including the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) — as well as the MoF and the Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development (MoFALD) shall extend the necessary guidance and support to the Programme and ensure collaboration of all relevant local bodies and line agencies. The programme will run until December 31, 2019.

The MoU was signed by Baikuntha Aryal, joint secretary at MoF and Gail Marzetti, head of DFID Nepal, on behalf of their respective governments, as per the statement.