Governance Facility to close

From the Nepali Press, www.deshsanchar.com

The controversial Governance Facility (GF) created four years ago by the government of Nepal with support from the Danish Embassy as well as the Swiss and British aid agencies, will pack its bags by the end of 2018. The Facility was set up to help achieve peace, human rights, and for justice and accountability. But the government and some human right activists have accused the office of promoting separatist movements and fomenting ethnic conflict in Nepal.

In a letter jointly signed by DANIDA chief Kasper Thede Anderskov, deputy chief of Swiss Embassy Deepak Emar, and DFID team leader Tom Wingfield on 16 April addressed to GF’s Nepali  partners states that though it is leaving Nepal at the end of 2018, it will use the experience it has gained working here  to continue to contribute to the federal process at the national, provincial and local levels.

The letter goes on to state that GF’s strategic steps were an important contribution to Nepal’s historic federal restructuring, and expresses happiness at the cooperation with the government, parliament, civil society, private sector, and media. As its latest effort, it claims to have completed a comparative study of the economic, social, legal and cultural reality, and natural resources of Nepal, incorporating articles by accredited Nepali experts and leaders of different fields in its publication ‘Federal Nepal’.

However, critics claim that though it had more than 75 partner organisations, the hefty cash amount that it doled out in the name of ‘assistance’ went to less than half a dozen organisations, and that the team leader was allowed to randomly distribute Rs 5 million to individuals and organizations of his choice, in a non-transparent manner.

They also allege that the Facility distributed cash to some Madhesh-centered organisations that were protesting the constitution, and to the Nepal Law Society as well as people helping separatist campaigner CK Raut.