The Governance Facility (GF) is a new initiative of the Embassies of Denmark and Switzerland, and the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) in agreement with the Government of Nepal. This arrangement is embedded in a bilateral agreement signed in December 2013 between the Government of Nepal and the Embassy of Denmark, which foresees the development of a joint donor facility to manage coherent, harmonized and coordinated funding support in line with the Aid Effectiveness Agenda (Paris Declaration, Accra Agenda for Action and Busan Partnership). The GF seeks to enhance governance through supporting state/government institutions and civil society organisations. The GF began to fund some initiatives in April 2014 to safeguard the good results from partners supported previously by some of the GF development partners and to bring them on board already as possible contributors to the fulfilment of GF objectives. The GF is being launched officially in December 2014.

The GF is a unique initiative that brings together financial and technical assistance from three donors for supporting good governance in Nepal. It is in line with the government’s desire to have bigger programmes – against scattered one-off interventions – as articulated in the Development Cooperation Policy. It also addresses the need for increased coordination among donors supporting governance improvements for attaining the intended results at lower transaction costs.

The GF believes that an open and transparent approach to supporting national efforts in fostering governance can result in greater coordination and complementarities among national partners, and lead to more effective and efficient partnerships. Over time, the GF seeks to enhance the capacities of its national partners for championing governance reforms for effective service delivery and democratic governance.