Kathmandu - The European Commission (EC) has agreed to
provide 60 million euros (78.43 million dollars) to Nepal in regular
development assistance over the next three years, officials said
Thursday.
The pledge came during a meeting of the Nepal-EC-Joint Commission
in Kathmandu, and the aid, which would be disbursed from 2007 to
2010, would be used for peace building and health programmes.
Nepalese officials said the commission, the executive body of the
European Union, had also agreed to review whether the assistance
should be increased during the second phase from 2010 to 2013 after
an analysis of Nepal's performance.
The 60 million euros does not include assistance that the European
Union currently provides through other organizations for human-rights
promotion, internal refugees and victims of Nepal's decade-long
conflict with Maoist rebels, which ended last year when the Maoists
agreed to lay down their arms and join the government.
The visiting seven-member commission delegation was led by its
Asia Director James Moran. Under the cooperation agreement reached in
1995, the Nepal-EC Joint Commission meets twice a year in Kathmandu
and Brussels.
The commission and EU member states are among Nepal's biggest aid
donors.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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