Wednesday, April 12, 2006

-Jagannath Ojha, Nepal

There are four fundamental goals of governance in Nepal, namely, national security and stability, rule of law, voice and participation and provisions of public goods and services. The first three goals pertain to its protective and promotive functions while the last one refers to its productive role. The fourth goal of governance is the provision of public goods and services. It involves equity goals-promotion of ecological balance, economic development, social equalities and justice. The best hope of good governance lies in the fact that social justice precedes law and order in the strategy of governing institutions, a justice that can also create a stable public order, peace and the advantages of collaboration. (Dahal: 2002)

Academically and more significantly, practically, the concept of governance and its role in the development process is gaining prominence day by day. At the heart of the governance lie institutions. When the process is granted any attention, common perception appears to be that the right institutions can be consciously created (Hermann 2002: 1). The major function of any type of institution is to deliver the service according to their jurisdiction. Institutional component in conflict situation is to address the conflict through setting appropriate procedure and deployment of appropriate personnel in the affected areas. According to principle of conflict management there are five steps to manage it (http/www.ctic.purdue.edu).

- Analyse the conflict
- Determine the management strategy
- Pre-negotiation
- Negotiation
- Post Negotiation

The above-mentioned steps are also equally important to assess the institutional requirement for the delivery of basic services in conflict situation. An institution is a collection of values, norms and groups that develops to accomplish a certain goals. (Pandey 2002: 258). It is widely accepted that the presence of government institutions in rural communities are limited due to arm conflict and mostly targeted by the CPN/M. Therefore, it has to be reoriented, more than this, may be restructured.

To understand the process underlying institutional change we need to carefully consider historical process of social, political and economic change and forces underlying such change; whether intentional or spontaneous. The state remains the most prominent social institution in both the developed and developing world. Although the state was out of favour with both practitioners and theorists in the 1980s, it returned to the agenda with new-found vigour in the 1990s. The debate has however not just returned to the early age of development studies in the form of unbridled enthusiasm for the role and po0tential of state interventions. Instead, the new institutionalist debate is to a much higher degree concerned with the nature of the state (Hermann 2002: 8).

Bureaucracy is under increasing pressure for ensuring economic liberalization. To cope with these problems, there is an increasing demand and desire for alternatives of bureaucracy. The local institutions are one of the parallel institutions which have a wide network and jurisdiction through the legal provision. But, they also rely on the government institutions and cannot exist independently. This may be due to lack of resources, capacity and experiences that they have at present. As explained earlier, Nepal does not have strong alternate institutions which can replace the government mechanism within short period of time. However, many programmes are executed through NGOs or CBOs. Given the present scope, scale and resources of CBOs and NGOs, they cannot be taken as an alternative of government from service delivery perspectives. However, these can be the most effective partner of the government for delivery of services in conflict area of Nepal.

The villages where NGO has been helping especially in irrigation development, there are reports of increased agricultural output. Most food experts blame shortage on the lack of agricultural management and investment by previous governments. The lack of effective food delivery mechanism has resulted in poor food distribution which has been further hindered by the absence of effective post harvest food storage system (Seddon and Adhikari: 2003, 32)

Possible institutional arrangements:

In this context the following models could be effectively applied for the delivery of basic services in conflict situations.

Reorganizing and strengthening the present form of government institutions: One of the models could be to develop regional concept for delivery of goods and services. This can be done by reorganizing present government institutions with cluster concept. At first, it needs to map the area based on service receiver's flow. According to this flow, different services have to be established covering certain particular zone. This type of institutional setup suggests that present political divisions have to be changed by redefining areas with new geographical division. Such redefined area will be based on strength of security and affordability of government from financial perspective. If we consider the political division which we are experiencing now, the model is more or less the same but as we know we are currently working according to the district headquarter model. Let us take example of Mallaj, which is in Parbat but very close to Beni of Myagdi district. People of this locality go to Beni for education, health check-up, marketing, etc. but they must have to go to Kushma for administrative affair. There are a number of examples like this. Therefore, for practical purpose the existing administrative structure needs to reform for a effective delivery of services. It needs major reform to make inclusive bureaucracy which could be a separate topic. As an indication, viewing from social prospective, the present form of bureaucracy is limited to certain caste and representing only the elites of the societies.

Enhancing local government capacity with extended authority: The decentralised model advocates more authority to local bodies. This model could be efficient model in conflict as well as normal situation. According to this model more and more people will be involved in governance through participation in decision-making and more power in terms of function, fund and functionaries is given to the local authority. This will encourage involving more participation in the governance. The local self-governance act 1999 has also provided greater scope for the participation of the people in development process but some key roles such as fund, personnel, control mechanism etc. still remain with the central government. This ultimately limits the role of these institutions and leads to the supportive roles only. The model of decentralization we are experiencing is "Power Upto Me". Authorities in all levels want to keep the power with her/him because of the socio- political culture of the society. Absence of elected officials for long time, poor performance in past programme, inefficient organization, less transparency, absence of clear demarcation of work and jurisdiction, improper project selection, political influence in social and development aspects, etc. are raising a lot of questions for the effective implementation of decentralization policy. The planning model of these local level organizations is illustrated in the following diagram with the concept of participatory planning system. The system is effective if the process is fair but due to lack of capacity at local level, political influence in development process, limited resource, no periodic election, ad hoc basis of project selection are largely affecting the local government. The model could only be implemented with the cooperation of central government, division of works, establishment of proper institution within local government and timely election. It needs a prospective plan.

Non-Governmental organizations: Service delivery through non-government organization in Nepal is as old as human society. There were a number of community based organizations (CBOs) in different forms in different regions. However, stronger and more resourceful organizations came into existence only after 1960s. The number multiplied after the democratic movement in 1990. But most of these were found fulfilling their political interests rather than delivering economic and social goods and services. The local people allege that most of the CBOs, NGOs and INGOs lack transparency and they are more loyal to the donor. Taking in stock these factors, this machinery also proved to be failure in replacing the government role as provider of goods and service delivery.

Private sector: Private sectors are more efficient in service delivery. But these organizations are more profit oriented and worked in those areas only where profit can be maximized.

Hybrid organization: The government has to form special type of institutions for the delivery of goods and services in the conflict area. The role of government should be limited to make conducive policies to attract private sector which encourage the investment in the rural communities. Such incentives may be in the form of subsidy or tax rebate for long run. Similarly, the role of government should be catalytic to activate non-governmental and community based organizations for the delivery of goods and services in the conflict areas. The next task could be to establish an efficient monitoring system which can be used for policy formulation. UN agencies in Nepal and civil society could be major stakeholders in this process. The most efficient organizations are the Community Based Organizations (CBOs) which are more localised and have influence in solving community problem. The performance of these community based organizations depends on education, profession, societal values and economic levels.

Excerpts from the author's NEFAS/FES sponsored seminar held recently in Kathmandu-ed.