Honorable Chief Minister Officially Launches Partnerships with the Private Sector in Province 2

At an event held on 16 August, 2019 in Janakpur, Honorable Lal Babu Raut, Chief Minister of Province 2, publicly launched the first six market-driven partnerships, catalysed by UKaid Skills for Employment Programme (सीप). These partnerships, with Fusemachines Nepal, Prabhu Bank, MAW Earthmovers, Genese Solution, Nepal SBI Bank and Rojgari Services, have the capabilities and incentives to generate innovations – new thinking, models, and approaches – and build sustainable, scalable market-led solutions.

The event, which was organized by Province 2’s Provincial Policy Commission (PPC) in collaboration with UKaid सीप saw participation from Ministry of Social Development, Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Planning, Ministry of Finance, leaders of the opposition party, Mayors, academic institutions and key private sector actors of the province.

The event, which was a follow-on action from the Challenge Fund Launch organized in May 2019, at Birgunj, highlighted the market constraints that the six new partnerships aim to address which will ultimately lead to sustainable training, employment, and migration management models and partnerships. During the event, the companies demonstrated their leadership and commitment on supporting underserved communities to access skills and migration management.

Speaking at the event Honorable Chief Minister opined, “I am confident that these partnerships will have a transformative impact on the Province and I look forward to more partnerships with the private sector and UKaid सीप in the days to come.”

Similarly, Lisa Honan, Head of Office of DFID Nepal said that ‘DFID Nepal was incredibly excited about these first set of six partnerships that are demand-driven and people-centric; and focused on current and emerging job roles.’

These six partnerships, over the next three years, have the potential to:

• • Train and create new jobs for over 18,500 job-seeking young Nepalis.
• • Serve over 30,000 migrants and their families with affordable financial services.
• • Foster around 50 institutional linkages between different stakeholders of the ecosystem to promote synergy and amplify impact.
• • Demonstrate noteworthy Public Private Partnership models that are replicable and scalable.
• • Catalyze nearly NPR 33 Crore (GBP 2.248 million) in new investments from the private sector.
• • Shift systemic thinking, create mechanisms, and policy reforms to aid and enable stronger public and private sector collaborations and investments.