Although the Social Welfare Council urged international non-governmental organisations to divert 20 percent of the amount mentioned in their existing project agreements to fight Covid-19, most of the organisations have not responded to the call yet.

Only 50 international NGOs have so far received approval from the Social Welfare Council to divert Rs 948.26 billion from their funds for programmes aimed at preventing and controlling the spread of Covid-19. Three international NGOs have applied for permission to divert Rs 220.25 million from their existing funds to fight Covid, while five have brought in fresh funds to fight the pandemic.

The council had made the call as the government faces a resources crunch in its fight against the pandemic.

“The number of foreign NGOs that have diverted funds to fight Covid-19 has been below our expectations,” said Durga Prasad Bhattarai, information officer at the council. “We had expected almost all of the 210 active foreign NGOs to present proposals to divert their funds to fight Covid-19.” The amount of money diverted towards the fight against Covid-19 is less than the 20 percent target set by the council for this fiscal.

International non-governmental organisations pledged aid worth Rs 21.62 billion for 2020-21, according to the State of Technical Assistance and Other Assistance published by the Ministry of Finance. In the last fiscal year 2019-20, the foreign NGOs had pledged Rs 24.79 billion, according to the ministry.

Before the council asked the foreign NGOs to divert the fund, the Association of International NGOs, a grouping of foreign NGOs in the country, had requested the council in late March to approve in principle the diversion of up to 100 percent of their programme budget for the next four to six months to work on Covid-19 preparedness and response programmes according to the priority set by the government.

But, the NGOs have struggled to meet even the 20 percent target set by the council. According to Bhattarai, foreign NGOs face a host of challenges in diverting their funds for Covid-related programmes.

“One of the reasons is that they are not getting approval from their donors,” said Popular Gentle Bhusal, country director at IPAS Nepal, an international NGOs working in the field of reproductive health.

He shared his own experience, “It took me a lot of time to convince our donors as they were reluctant to approve the diversion of funds originally approved for a particular programme,” said Bhusal, also a member of association of international NGOs.

But eventually, IPAS Nepal received approval from the council to divert Rs 12.5 million for the prevention and control of the Covid 19 after its proposal was endorsed by its donors. It will now use the funds to distribute health kits to all provincial and federal hospitals.

Similar is the experience of Govinda Adhikari, former country director at IM Swedish Development Partners. “After the donor— Swedish International Development Agency, refused to approve the diversion, we received a separate fund from the headquarters of IM Swedish Development Partners,” he said. According to Adhikari, his organisation has spent over Rs 3 million on Covid-19 programmes.

Representatives from international NGOs say that the government also needs to request institutional donors, at least those who have residencial offices in Nepal, to adopt a flexible stance on diversion of funds to fight Covid-19.

Many international NGOs receive funds from the donor agencies which have residential offices in Nepal even though the government’s policy says such donors shouldn’t provide aid earmarked for Nepal foreign NGOs.

“International NGOs can’t divert funds as long as donors don’t approve of it,” said Adhikari, who has extensive experience in the NGO sector.