Local Democracy in Nepal: Critical Issues and Directions

1
Local Democracy in Nepal Critical Issues and
Directions

• Hemant R Ojha
• Governance Specialist
• ForestAction Nepal
• www.forestaction.org
• Ojhahemant1_at_gmail.com

2
Why Local Governance?

• Local governance older than nation-states a
  natural way of governing civilization
• Bringing government closer to citizens
• Beyond federal provinces provincial governance
  still not adequate in deepening democracy.
• Increased responsiveness of the government to
  citizens
• To correct market failures in provisioning local
  public goods
• To reduce the overall cost of government

3
Functions of local governance

• Provisioning function create and distribute
  public goods
• Raise revenues through taxes
• Organise resources to create public goods
• Civic engagement function provide citizens
  opportunities for deliberation
• Enabling function facilitate and promote
  Entrepreneurial innovations
• Conflict mediation adopt social and judicial
  approaches to conflict mediation

4
Nepal Context of Local Democracy

• Diversity around 100 ethnic groups, and 70
  languages
• Heterogeneity economic differentiation, spatial
  disparity
• Poverty and marginality per capita income USD
  200, widening inequality
• Environmental fragility over 70 hills and
  mountains
• Remoteness and accessibility takes days to reach
  own BDC headquarters
• Feudal political culture resistance to true
  devolution of power
• Long history of struggle against monarchy
  centralized political institutions
• Conflict and transition opportunity to define
  government at the constitutional level

5
Nepal Waves of Local Governance Innovations

• Panchayat (1960-90) repeated attempts to
  decentralization for allowing Panchas to exercise
  some power through local panchayats
• Democracy Era (1990 2002)
• Enactment of Local Self-Governance Act and
  election of local bodies
• Emergence of community networks and federations
  through sectoral devolution such as forest users
  federations
• Civil conflict period (1997 2005)
• Local bodies legitimacy questioned,
  functionality constrained
• Community networks continued to cope with
  conflict environment
• Post-Conflict period (2006-till date)
• Repeated attempts to revive local bodies but no
  political consensus
• Constitutional discourse on local government
• Community networks have filled the local
  governance gaps to a significant extent.

6
Nepal Local Governance Experience in Nepal Since
1990

• Constitution of local governance actors
• Local government federations emerged and continue
  to be active
• Intra-party centralization has detrimental
  effects on local governance
• Too much obsessed with developmentalism, with
  limited independent political engagement
• Local governments depended too heavily on the
  centre to exist and centre did not revive or
  elect after 2002.
• Lack of harmony between community networks and
  local bodies

7
Critical Issues

• Government versus governance
• Sarkar (government) is not a citizen friendly
  notion in Nepal
• Sasan (governance) is also perceived as control
  of people by a power holder
• Sthania Nikaya (local bodies) or Sthaniya
  Sarkar (local government) are too narrow view of
  local democracy
• The English discourse elitist privilege and the
  development jargon
• Representation versus participation
• Democracy narrowly understood as election of
  representatives
• Processes of deliberation, social learning,
  everyday politics and interactions, and symbolic
  marketplace

8
Critical Issues

• Founding local government individual sovereignty
  versus community practices?
• Handling the difference gender, class, caste,
  ethnicity, regionalism
• physical inclusion or deliberative inclusion?
• Resistance and reproduction
• Expanding local democracy balancing demand and
  supply?
• Political centralisation (national political
  party) and decentralisation of the state

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Critical Issues

• Decentralization without fiscal and
  administrative decentralization?
• Scale of local governance
• which perspective control or self-governance?
• geographic factors
• Interface with national government bureaucracy
• Capacity issues
• Symbolic capital issues Balancing
• Local government in an era of globalisation?

10
Re-Crafting Local Governance in the New
Constitution

• Subsidairity
• political feasibility versus normative appeal
• Beyond self-governance in paper
• Minimizing central control in practice beyond
  formal constitutional and legislative provisions
• Authority and jurisdictions
• Revenue generation and spending
• Horizontal equity?
• Size and boundaries
• linking demands for ethnic autonomy
• Tiers / Spheres of local governance
• Two tiers or single tier?

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Re-Crafting Local Governance

• Capacity
• Local governance knowledge to be produced under
  local government networks
• Beyond electoral frameworks
• Deliberative governance
• Main purpose
• enabling collective actions of citizens
• Enabling innovations and social learning

12
Local Governance Arena
Local government council
Local Govt
Political party
Market
Individual citizens
13
Possibility of Democratic Local Governance
Critical Discourse
Old Boundary
New Boundary
Contention
Growth of independent discursive sphere free
from feudalistic, techno-bureaucratic and vikase
mindsets
Further crisis in feudalistic mindsets/culture