E-Governance Blueprint Stalled After Loss of USD 2.5 Billion USAID Grant, Board Seeks New Donor

Kathmandu: The government’s e-governance blueprint has nearly come to a halt after the US Agency for International Development (USAID) stopped providing over USD 2.5 billion in grants. Nepal’s heavy reliance on foreign donors has left major projects like the e-governance blueprint and the Digital Nepal Framework stalled.

The blueprint, prepared by the e-Governance Board, has been on hold since USAID withdrew its grant. With no sufficient budget allocation from the government, the board’s leadership is now seeking alternative funding and holding discussions with other donor agencies. Officials say the contracting process for the blueprint can move forward only if new funding is secured.

Dipesh Bista, CEO of the board, said the suspension of USAID’s support had the biggest impact. “We had already prepared a tender to proceed with this amount. We needed resources to carry out all the work specified in the blueprint. We had planned to use USAID money, but that was stopped. Now we are trying to raise investment from other donor agencies,” Bista said.

Asked about the work completed in the three years since its establishment, Bista said creating the e-governance blueprint was their main achievement. “The blueprint is not just one topic; it covers 50 topics,” he said. “It includes e-governance, data security, integrating digital signatures with national ID cards, collecting data from citizens only once, and creating the technical structure for a data exchange platform.”

The board has already passed the Terms of Reference (TOR) for the data exchange platform and prepared a draft of the ‘Personal Data Protection Act, 2082’.

Bista argues that a separate body is needed because a single ministry cannot handle the digitization process. “Today, the national identity card is with the Ministry of Home Affairs, the health system with the Ministry of Health, and taxpayer details with the Ministry of Finance. We have vertical coordination but no horizontal coordination. Only when citizen data starts flowing into the system can services be provided from one place,” he said.

Former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba appointed Bista, an information technology expert, as CEO of the e-Governance Commission. Later, the government converted the commission into the e-Governance Board and retained him in the role.

Meanwhile, the Digital Nepal Framework, introduced by the Ministry of Communications, has also been stalled after the World Bank withheld financial assistance.

 

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