Project Summary

Project Title: LGAR - Local Governance Dialogues
Funding Partner: The Asia Foundation (TAF)
Document Source: projectsummary2.pdf

Overview & Implementation Details

Project: LGAR – Local Governance Dialogues
Funding Partner: The Asia Foundation (TAF)
Start Date: April 25, 2014
End Date: March 20, 2015

The Constituent Assembly (CA) that was supposed to provide a way out for institutionalizing
Local Governance and Federalism in Nepal failed to live up to its promise. And the country had a
new election for CA on 19 November 2013. The major political parties of Nepal had declared that
they would deliver the new constitution within January 2015 but failed. Though, the new popularly
elected CA is on its task to write new Constitution.
At this backdrop, Institute for Governance and Development (IGD) with support of The Asia
Foundation implemented the program titled “Local Governance Dialogues”. The plan of the
program was to conduct dialogues on local governance and federalism at the national level and
sub-national level.
Accordingly, IGD conducted four sub-national level dialogues - 1. in Butwal (August 9, 2014), 2.
in Biratnagar (September 20, 2014) 3. in Pokhara (March 12, 2015) and Dhangadhi (March 14,
2015) and two national level dialogues (November 13-14, 2014 and March 20, 2015) in
Kathmandu.

The overall objective of the dialogues is to enhance discourses on local governance and generate
reflections for strengthening participatory democratization in Nepal. The specific objective of the
dialogues is to convene a gathering of critical thinkers, academia, policy makers, political actors,
activists and other civil society actors at the local level to enhance discourse on local governance
and federalism in Nepal.

AUTHORS
TO
CONTRIBUTE
PAPERS
ON
LOCAL
GOVERNANCE
AND
FEDERALISM

1. Political Perspectives on Institutional Choices for Local Governance in Federal
   Nepal by Mr. Surya Kiran Gurung
   The paper will take cognizance of the different strands and viewpoints dominating the
   political discourse focused on local governance in Nepal. Especially after the country
   decided to opt for federal polity political discourse on local governance has taken a new
   twist and dimension. The political stakeholders are divided over the constitutional and
   legal script of the local governance institutions to define future shape and competence of
   local democracy in Nepal. And the political positions as they appear and are explicated
   would bring dissimilar and substantively different implications on the version of local
   democratic scheme in new federal set up in the country. This will decide about the choices
   we are going to make about the form of federal polity – hegemonic or democratic, citizen
   centric or elite centric. The paper will duly account for the positions of the political parties
   on local governance with reference to the CA elections manifestoes, the stances taken by
   them in thematic committees of the last CA and the corpus of deliberation in the new CA.

Each position will be critically evaluated and discussed specially to show the implication
each would fetch on the institutional version of local governance in Nepal.

2. Reimagining Local Governance as process and mechanism for democratization of
   State by Mr. Vidyadhar Mallik
   Democracies- whether they are in unitary or federal countries- are in deep crisis. Though
   regular elections, with a few exceptions, have been held in most of the countries,
   democracies have become more formal and procedural operating at the macro national
   level without nurturance and participation of the people. People practice and experience
   democracy at the local level. The can use and utilize the democratic spaces properly and
   effectively only when such an enabling environment is fostered at the grassroot level. They
   can participate in the process of governance and development when the local governance
   institutions are democratic, civic institutions possess capacity and resources to
   complement and collaborate with the government and safeguard the rights and interests
   of the people in case they are in peril. Moreover, local government in this context is
   expected to coordinate and create an enabling environment so that stakeholders can
   participate in the local public affairs. The paper will rearticulate the vision of local
   democratic institutions, process and mechanism especially in widening and deepening
   democracy in the new federal Nepal.

3. Building local governance institutions for inclusive citizenship and nation building in
   Federal Nepal by Mr Balkrishna Mabuhang
   Pluralism and federalism appear as the two essential principles for organizing
   heterogeneous societies. They are assumed to create a viable a pattern of political power
   sharing though accommodation of social, political and cultural diversities. It is said that
   the essence of federalism is non-centralization and self rule. This calls for restructuring
   and remodeling the local governance institutions that create sufficient conditions and
   opportunities for the people to organize, articulate and participate in social and political
   life of the nation. The paper is expected to set proposals for building local governance
   institutions that offer a sound and vibrant basis for inclusive citizenship and shared values
   for unity within diversity in Nepal.

4. Clarifying jurisdictional options for Local Governance: A case for principle of
   subsidiarity by Mr. Parashu Upadhyaya
   In a federal set up the distribution of powers establishes how powers are constitutionally
   allocated and established between the different orders and levels of the government. The
   distribution of powers is one of the elements of the local democracy and self rule. The
   sharing of financial resources is at least as important for determining the autonomy and
   functional competence of local governance institutions. There are no such fixed rules as
   to what kind of power each level or order of government in a federation should have. But
   according to principle of subsidiarity higher levels of government should only assume
   those powers that cannot be effectively managed and implemented by lower levels of
   government. It should be mentioned that without necessary resources, powers remain
   empty. The paper shall refer to the reports of the thematic committees of the Past CA,

provisions and practices in successful federations, presentation and deliberations in and
generate a very sound and concrete proposal to clarify jurisdicstions of the local
governments in a federal set up in the country.

MAJOR ACHIEVEMENTS AND RESULTS
 Four thematic papers - themes and issues with different experts' views - prepared
 Six LG discourses at five different regions organized
 Forums for stakeholders on the issues of LG in federal set up convened and deliberations
facilitated
 Inputs/suggestions from governance practitioners, lawyers, experts, among others for
further improvement of the papers received
 A documented recommendations on LG for Federal set up of Nepal as an output of
discourses produced
 The CA Members, among others appreciated the dialogues' outputs. They appreciated that
the recommendations on LG for federal set up will provide a reference document and
advocacy tool.

Significance & Legacy

This project contributed directly to IGD's institutional knowledge base and helped establish long-term networks among local communities, civic leaders, and government stakeholders.