Expediting Local Development
Civil Society’s Role Vital

By Khilendra Basnyat

DEVELOPMENT, which is a process and good management of human and natural resources, is possible when political leaders and academicians are committed to their countries.

In general, raising living standards and improving health, education and equality of opportunities are essential components of economic development, and ensuring political and civil rights is a broad development goal.

In fact, local development is about improving the welfare of the people. Its needs are dictated by local physical conditions rather than ideologies. Since it will be ridiculous to categorise drinking water needs as democratic needs or left wing needs, it is necessary to look at the local development needs from the perspective of the local people.

Nepal’s physical divisions into plants, hills and mountains seen to have influenced the imbalance in local development and its benefits to the local people.

The hill region is about a century behind to its development perspective. The reason for this seems to be poor technological development, inadequate means of production, shortage of skilled manpower and low degree of political awareness.

The complicated terrain crisscrossed by mountain ranges, rivers and forests has not only isolated the villages, districts and regions from each other but also hampered local development activities.

It is true that with hardly adequate resources to sustain, thousands of people in the remote mountain areas of Nepal always live at the brink of near famine conditions.

Although in the past some efforts made for streamling local development needs, the administrative machinery and network for implementation of local development programme look like inverted pyramid even today with top heavy paraphernalia but lacking a broad base at the grass-roots level. As a result, the endeavours made at the top dissipate before they can percolate down the bottom.

Some economists and others are of the opinion that poverty and unemployed, corruption and lack of efficient management and the gap between economic objectives and policies were the main factors impeding local development.

In the past, our development process was conspicious by concentration of available resources in accessible areas with better potentialities for high return. This may be obvious from the inequitable allocation of public sector development expenditure.

Although Nepal has made some progress to human development sectors in the last four decades, especially in education, health and transportation, the achievement is far from satisfactory at the local level. The disparities among the haves and have-nots, advantaged and disadvantaged groups and between males and females are responsible for the low human development record.

In fact, political capability with corresponding administrative efficiency is essential to transform the country from backwardness to advancement. Every segment of society, especially those. Who are conscious and knowledgeable, can bring about positive change in local development.

In reality, a democratic government is a must for local development. No doubt, elections to village committee committees and district development committees have been successful in democratising the structure of local government.

The increasing responsibility in local development matters of these elected official and the growing democratisation of this process with the growth of consciousness have established a structure of representatives in local government. However, due to poor governance, the people have been disenchanted with the democratisation process in general.

Although in the past some endeavours were made for local development, the secnario is yet not one to be encouraged. The planned development has yielded outcomes in that a clear agenda for development has come forth. However, the fact remains that the people’s aspirations have not been yet fully net. Due to the fact that their desires have soared especially after the restoration of democracy a decade ago.

Past experience shows that centralised development planning and policies were not successful as intended. Despite attempts for socio-economic development, the programme strategies were unable to respond to the real needs of the people effectively at the local level.

In the past, a variety of local development were launched in many parts of the Kingdom. However, the impact of such projects disappeared in most cases soon after the projects were terminated. In order to avoid such shortcomings, it is essential to emphasise on the programme approach more than the project one, development planning and implementation, including resources generation and use should be decentralised to the local level. The government intervention should aim at stimulating the process but not substituting it. Apart from these, the government should also establish an effective network for monitoring and evaluation and award those who adopt employment generating development activities at the local level.

The paucity of resources has limited the prospects of local development. It has been further hampered by political hurdles. The local people have not got the fruits of development they were pledged. Therefore, local development should be depoliticised in the sense that development is needed irrespective of political situation.

Over the past few decades, our local development efforts failed to improve the mode of living of the majority of the poor. Now, the emphasis is being placed on participatory development process as a main strategy to the people centred development approach. The ultimate purpose of the participatory development process is to change people’s choices while engaging in the country’s diverse development activities.

In fact, putting participatory ideal into practice is not an easy job because it brings about a number of practical, political and professional challenges. In any society, expectations are bound to increase as their needs become more wide and complicated.

The role of a civil society in local development cannot be understimated. It has a significant role in enhancing public participation in local development activities. Therefore, a partnership between the government and a civil society can be instrumental in providing momentum to local development activities.

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