KATHMANDU (AFP) — The World Bank has announced 50 million dollars in grants to support a peace deal in Nepal, after the country's former Maoist rebels scored a surprise win in landmark elections last month.
The funds, the largest such aid flow since the peace process began more than a year ago, will be used as compensation for families of the 13,000 people killed in the civil war and for the allowances of some 20,000 Maoist former guerrillas confined to UN monitored camps, the World Bank statement said Wednesday.
"In this pivotal moment in Nepal's history it is important to take concrete steps to consolidate the peace process and to ensure that development and service delivery are scaled up," said Susan Goldmark, World Bank country director for Nepal.
As part of the peace deal, families are to receive around 1,500 dollars for each relative killed, and the former fighters in the UN-monitored camps are supposed to receive an allowance of 46 dollars per month.
Nepal's decade-long civil war ended in a late 2006 peace deal. The conflict decimated the already fragile economy of the aid-dependent Himalayan nation, one of the poorest countries in the world.
In addition to the 50 million for "emergency peace support" the World Bank approved other funding for the health and water sectors totalling 77 million dollars, the bank said in its statement.
Nepal's Maoists launched their "people's war" in 1996 aiming to topple the monarchy and establish a communist republic.
The April 10 polls -- to elect a body that will abolish world's last Hindu monarchy and rewrite Nepal's constitution -- were a key part of the 2006 peace pact.
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