Regions and Countries

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p. 16 of 20 BACK | NEXT I. Country Performance Assessment II. Country Operational Strategy III. Sector Strategies IV. Regional Cooperation V. Donor Activities and Aid Coordination VI. Cofinancing and Catalyzing External Resources VII. ADB’s Operational Program VIII. Economic and Sector Work Program IX. Local Cost Financing

Country Assistance Plans - Bhutan

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V. Donor Activities and Aid Coordination

83. Bhutan has established a reputation as a developing country that is able to make effective use of the assistance available to it. External assistance mostly in the form of grants generally finance all the capital expenditures in the budget (see Appendix 3). Most of such assistance are provided on a grant basis from bilateral donors and UN agencies. India is the largest bilateral donor. Others include Austria, Denmark, Japan, Netherlands, and Switzerland. Among the multilateral institutions, the Bank is the largest donor, followed by UN agencies and the World Bank. Aid management and coordination are the responsibility of the Government and the discharge of this responsibility is assisted by collaboration among the donors and between the donors and the Government.

84. The in-country donor community is relatively small, and most if not all members of it are well known to one another. ADB makes regular contact with Government and donor agency officials, and contributes actively to sectoral and more general programming workshops. Close coordination with various donors in respective sectors was undertaken to enhance development impact of ADB interventions. In transport sector, Government of India provides assistance in civil aviation, road construction and maintenance, and bridges. The World Bank and SNV focus on environmentally friendly rural access road construction while ADB's assistance emphasizes institutional development for technical capacity particularly on main road maintenance. A number of donors are active in developing human resources of the country including the World Bank in primary education; India, Government of Denmark, UNFPA, UNICEF, WHO, UNCDF in health facilities; ADB in health sector policy reforms and technical and vocational education; and UNDP, Governments of Austria, Sweden, Denmark, India, and Netherlands in overall human resources development. In the energy sector, ADB's assistance in rural electrification and sector reforms were provided within the framework of the overall development in the power sector with assistance from the Governments of India, Austria, Japan, and Norway. ADB supports urban development in close coordination with Government of Denmark for the two major towns and consistent with the World Bank's assistance in ten secondary towns. Adequate resources were provided by IFAD, FAO, JICA, Governments of Netherlands, Denmark, Austria and Switzerland/Helvetas, European Community, UNDP in the agriculture sector. UNDP, WWF, and Governments of Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, and Switzerland are also active in the environment sector.

85. The next Roundtable Meeting is currently planned for 7-9 November 2000 after almost three years since the last meeting. The venue will be in Thimphu against the usual venue of Geneva. The Government with UNDP support is taking more ownership in organizing the proposed event compared to previous meetings. The theme of the meeting has been realigned to "Development Towards Gross National Happiness" with emphasis on (i) environment and conservation; (ii) social and economic development; (iii) culture heritage; and (iv) governance. The Government has agreed to include a political briefing on refugee and security issues during the meeting.

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