Nepal Govt Mulls Good Governance Program for Local Bodies

In a bid to ensure good governance at the provincial level, Nepal Federal Affairs & General Administration Ministry is planning to come up with a training program for provincial and local governments.

According to a Ministry official, enhancing the capacities of sub-national governments is important as they are now catering to many federal government rights.

Present Scenario
Provincial and local government officials expressed their difficulties in providing services according to the general public’s need in the absence of adequate staff, especially trained staff.

“The federal government has dispatched lower ranked staff to the local levels with limited knowledge. We do not need experts. We need trained staff,” said Hom Narayan Shrestha, President, National Association of Rural Municipality.

Training and workshops will help them gain knowledge on effective delivery of services, Shrestha added.

Federal Affairs Ministry’s Training Program
The good governance program has two components – training and challenge.

The training component aims to provide supply & demand-driven training to provincial & local governments and people-representatives.

“Under the supply-driven training-training related to financial management, ways to ensure greater participation of community in decision-making, handling judicial duties, making gender sensitive budget, revenue management among others can be provided. Demand driven training can be provided based on the demands of provincial and local governments,” said Amrit Lamsal, Under-Secretary, Federal Affairs Ministry.

To conduct this training program, the Ministry is planning to extend the reach of Local Development Training Academy to all seven provinces.

“The academy will train officials from provincial and local government,” said Lamsal.

Challenge Fund
Under the challenge fund, the Ministry aims at providing financial assistance to provincial and local governments if they come up with innovative measures to improve their services.

“For example, a municipality can propose automating all the ward offices and seek funding for it. Such a municipality can receive support from challenge fund,” said Lamsal.

Funds will be allocated based on distributing costs between federal & provincial governments as well as federal & local governments.

“The concerned provincial or local government must share certain portion of the financial burden,” Lamsal added.

An Investment of USD 150 Million
The Federal Affairs & General Administration Ministry aims to raise an amount for USD 150 million for the given project.

It plans to approach foreign investors including the European Union, Norwegian Government, Swiss Agency for Development & Cooperation and UK Department for International Development for the training program.

However, it limits this investment to USD 100 million. The remaining amount will be contributed by the federal government who will be investing one-third of the global-donor spend and local & provincial government with a contribution of 10 percent of the given amount.