The paradox of local level governance in Nepal is that much money and effort have been poured into it over the decades but with no visible improvement. In 1982, the Decentralisation Act had devolved authority not only to the then district and village panchayats but made room for user groups to manage their own affairs. The concept was later inducted into the forestry legislation as Forest User Groups (FUG) in 1988. In contrast to many years of foreign-aided forestry development efforts earlier, it was this domestically innovated paradigm shift that led to the dramatic restoration of Nepal’s forest wealth in about a decade’s time. The local bodies and the user groups complemented each other.

However, the multiparty diehards of 1990s dispensed with everything “panchayati” including the decentalisation initiative. But the leaders of the renamed District Development Committees soon wanted a jurisdiction that was “nothing more or nothing less than what was provided in the Decentralisation Act.” This resulted in a renewed initiative in 1996 to revisit the decentralisation issue. However, since the UNDP and the DANIDA were already interested in the subject, the government’s decision created grounds for unhealthy competition which essentially meant influencing the decisions with the power of the purse. What resulted was the Local Self-Governance Act 1999 which failed to include the vital provisions regarding the user groups.

The new legislation still requires the formation of “user committees” as a condition for transfer of funds to the village projects. But, the detailed provisions regarding “user committees” made in the erstwhile Decentralisation Act were lacking in the new one. The local bodies were invariably composed of the handpicked favourites of the village elites. Because of this grievous fault, the real stakeholders, unlike in the FUGs, had no control over their resources.

As a result, the billions of rupees that went through the DDCs and VDCs in various tied and untied grants over the years made little dent on the problems of poverty and deprivation that continue to remain rampant in Nepal’s villages. It is very often suggested that lack of elected officials in the local bodies stood in the way of good governance in the communities. But, given this weakness in the legislation, there is more to good governance than just having elected officials in the local level bodies.

While the country has been contending with this problem for so many years now, DANIDA of late has again embarked on another misadventure.

As explained in a late afternoon seminar recently, the donor agency has supported a local NGO, Rural Development Foundation (RDF), to implement a 19-month long 10 million rupee project entitled “Promoting Local Governance for Effective Service Delivery” in six selected districts. It was said to be “supply-side” governance strengthening initiative and comprised workshops for government officials, local politicians, NGO/CBO officials, and “service receivers”. The project developed training manuals, formed coordination committees and “good governance pressure groups”, and held public hearings with government officials including the CDOs in attendance.

Speakers from the six districts where the project was being implemented spoke highly of the project. They also wanted the project to continue so that the local officials would remain helpful to them in the service delivery task. But, nothing was revealed at the meeting regarding the fact that the district officials were paid hefty allowances for following the project officials to the villages or answering questions in public hearings. So concern about sustainability and replicability of the initiative was raised during the meeting. The Chief Secretary of the government, for one, poignantly observed that good governance is basically about transparency of management and accountability of service givers. But the project mangers had nothing to say about what kind of institutional arrangement was made to ensure transparency and accountability.

In this regard, there would have been much to learn from Community Forestry where the forest users alone participate in the decision-making process that concerns their forest. That assures transparency of management and the accountability of its leaders, irrespective of the fact that most of the latter come from among the local elites. It has been this institutional arrangement that achieved accelerated rejuvenation of Nepal’s forest wealth and continues to enrich it. But, the DANIDA-funded project failed to even take note of it.

The single most important contribution that the government and donors could make to promote good governance in the villages is to restore the user group provision in the LSGA. This would go a long way in empowering the stakeholders and assuring effective service delivery across

the board.

Shrestha is a development anthropologist