‘Foreign pledges continue to slow down because of the current political standoff, and donors have adopted wait and see policy’. The country has received more than US$3bn foreign assistance in the last fiscal year, which was similar amount compared to the previous fiscal year, according to Economic Relations Division (ERD) figures released yesterday. Of the total foreign assistance, development partners disbursed $2.5bn as credit and $5.7bn as grant in FY15 while it was $2.3bn as credit and $7.3bn as grant in the previous fiscal. The receipt was more than 10% down from the fiscal’s target for foreign aid of $3.4bn. The aid commitment for FY15 declined as some donors were cautious over the current political impasse, officials said. The commitment during the period was around $5.21bn, down 10.8% from $5.84bn in FY14 and 14% from fiscal target of $6bn. Of the total commitment in the last fiscal year, around $4.75bn came in the form of loan and $455m as grants. An ERD official said: “Foreign pledges continue to slow down due to the current political standoff. Donors have adopted wait and see policy.” Among the development partners, the leading multilateral donor World Bank disbursed highest amount of $10.2bn, followed by Asian Development Bank $711.59m, JICA $294.02m, India $93.88m, China $148m and IDB $127.21 million. Top 10 development partners according to contribution are IDA, ADB, Japan, the USA, UN systems, the UK, Canada, Germany, the EU and the Netherlands. During the period, the government had paid over $1.2bn, of which $923.5m as principal amount and $182.5m as interest, to the development partners against the outstanding loans. In the corresponding period of last fiscal, the government had paid $1.3bn, of which over $1bn as principal amount and $206m. An official said it is very often seen that there is a gap between aid commitments and disbursements, resulting in huge pipeline of foreign aids. He said the receiving countries have to perform better in some key things like approval of projects and meeting conditions in a speedy way to quick release of the funds. “If the government releases the fund faster, the disbursements and investment would increase, and so as the GDP growth. Otherwise, the development efforts would be affected.”
