📋 Tender Overview
Project Name
Country Operations Management Enhancement
Project Number
58409-001
Country / Economy
Nepal
Project Status
Active
Project Type / Modality of Assistance
Technical Assistance
Source of Funding / Amount
TA 10475-NEP: Country Operations Management Enhancement
Technical Assistance Special Fund US$ 1.30 million
Operational Priorities
OP1: Addressing remaining poverty and reducing inequalities
OP2: Accelerating progress in gender equality
OP6: Strengthening governance and institutional capacity
Sector / Subsector
Information and communication technology / ICT industries and ICT-enabled services
Public sector management / Public administration
Gender
Effective gender mainstreaming
Description
The technical assistance (TA) will support the Government of Nepal in enhancing the implementation of Asian Development Bank (ADB) assistance in the country, the related programming process, and the institutional capacity of the government by providing client-oriented, cross-cutting, and capacity building support. The TA will support the delivery of ADB's operational priorities 1, 2 and 6. It is included for 2024 approval and recorded in the aide-memoire of the 2024 country programming mission. The TA is aligned with ADB's country partnership strategy (CPS), 2020-2024 for Nepal, contributing to the priority area on policy reforms and capacity development of subnational governments for service delivery. It will also contribute to the forthcoming CPS, 2025-2029 for Nepal, which continues to place priority on capacity building for improved service delivery at all three-tiered federal system of governance, federal, provincial, and local.
Project Rationale and Linkage to Country/Regional Strategy
Operations challenges. ADB's active portfolio in Nepal was $3.41 billion at the end of November 2024, with 27 loans totaling $3.24 billion and 13 investment grants totaling $166.2 million. The forthcoming CPS envisages an average annual country allocation of about $500 million during 2025-2029, increasing annual contract awards and disbursements targets. However, Nepal's project implementation performance is one of the weakest in South Asia, both in financial and safeguard management. This is reflected in Nepal's low average portfolio disbursement ratio (13.9%) compared with other South Asian countries (25.3%) from 2020 to 2023, and the low safeguard performance rating. Hence, improving Nepal's portfolio performance is critical for enhancing government capital expenditure performance, minimizing project impacts on affected people, and accelerating the country's development results.
While the ongoing TA for Public Investment Implementation Performance Improvement aims to address specific systemic issues recurrent within the government, ongoing projects require targeted support to overcome weak (i) contract management capacity; (ii) safeguard and construction site readiness; (iii) environmental and social (E&S) safeguard capacity and com
