Kathmandu, 29 November 2012: Today the Election Commission of Nepal (ECN), the European Commission (EC) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have embarked on a new partnership to strengthen the foundations of democracy in Nepal. A four year financing agreement was signed between the European Commission and Ministry of Finance to support the Election Commission’s ambitious institutional strengthening reform agenda that is built on its recent successes. A separate project implementation document was also signed between Election Commission and UNDP to implement the reform programme.
The new phase of the project entitled ‘Electoral Support Project Phase II’ was signed at the Ministry of Finance and is a joint initiative of the Government of Nepal, European Commission, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and other development partners. The project has a total budget of EUR 19.978 million with the European Commission being a significant contributor to the project.
The Project will support the ECN in carrying out its mandate of holding fair and credible elections, enhancing its institutional capacity both at central and local levels as well as increasing the capacity and reach of the newly established Electoral Education and Information Center. It will also promote activities to maintain stakeholder confidence in the electoral process and will support the ECN in meeting their increasingly advanced information and communication technology needs.