National 7 (Spotlight Weekly)

Capacity Building of the Local Bodies

By Krishna Man Pradhan

There is no alternative to the local bodies– VDCs /DDCs/ Municipalities – in identifying the problems at the local level in order to carry out proper and effective development efforts and deliver services to the people. For the local bodies to work as local government, they need to consider about the rights, resources and capacities they would require. It would not be wise to envisage effective service-delivery in the absence of adequate capacity. Therefore, it is imperative to build the capacity of the local bodies in order to make them work as local governments in a responsible, accountable and service-oriented manner to achieve good governance.

The capacity building of the local bodies mean they are able to deliver the services to the people and carry out basic developmental efforts in a convenient, cost-effective and efficient manner paving the way for institutional and human resource development. The Local Self-Governance Act (LSGA) 1999 and Regulations 2000 were introduced with this same objective in mind. The Act and Regulations aim to delegate the authority of the center to the local bodies through the process of decentralization. However, the concept of the local government is yet to take roots. In real sense, the capacity building is the functional and institutional empowerment of local bodies through ensuring necessary institutional machinery, functional machinery, resource mobilization, local leadership, mobilization of private and civil society, effectiveness in planning system and management of able manpower so that they are able to handle the devolved rights and duties. The capacity building needs to be promoted as a long-term tool to ensure the effective service delivery and to make certain that the local units are able to successfully carry out the duties that are currently being performed by the center and that would be devolved in future. Likewise, it is necessary to continuously pursue the institutional reforms and development process for their strengthening. The center should start limiting its duties to that of framing policies and engaging in significant activities. Further, there is a need to clearly demarcate the functions to be carried out by the center and the local units. This is necessary to ensure participatory, result-oriented and fruitful service to the people.

Institutional management capacity, human resource, financial management and physical infrastructures are required to make the local bodies fully able to carry out duties of a local government. Fourteen years after the restoration of democracy and six years after the enactment of the LSGA, there is a need for wide discussion and analysis about the capacity and system of the local bodies.

It seems that the existing organizational structure of the local bodies – with 75 DDC, 58 municipalities and 3913 VDC – needs to be reconsidered. The relations and coordination among the VDCs, DDCs and municipalities are very poor at present. They need to be strengthened. Questions have been raised regarding the ability of the existing staffs of the local bodies and whether they are able to carry out their duties in a transparent, accountable and responsible manner. Majority of the elected officials of the local bodies have not been able to fully embrace the spirit and objective of the LSGA and the Regulations given the existing state of education in Nepal. Likewise, they have not been able to avail of even the minimum resources in view of the lack of their financial management capability as well as guidelines and action-plans for the same. The problems faced by the local people are immense but the resources and capabilities in hand are minimal resulting in the problems in annual village, city and district council meetings. Income and expenditure accounting system is not satisfactory. The local bodies are not too excited to implement the existing taxation systems. At times, they are not mobilizing the local users groups while implementing various development and construction projects. In the last three years, they have only spent 70 percent of the allocated budget and a large portion of the budget was used up in administrative expenses.

The LSGA and the Regulations envisage developing the local bodies as development units but in the reality they are busy most of the time engaged in carrying out minor activities and sorting out similar problems and disputes. As a result, the local bodies are not working as per the spirit of the Act. Furthermore, thanks to the lack of clarity in the Act and regulations, the local bodies are found doing things they are not supposed to do while not doing things that they should be doing. Due to the conflict, they are unable to prepare the annual plans on time. The monitoring and evaluation, too, are not effective.

In the absence of guidelines and systems to govern them, the DDCs, VDCs and municipalities are not able to select proper plans and implement them. Thanks to the conflict, 50 percent of the physical infrastructures of the local bodies have been burnt down. Even in those office buildings, which remain unaffected, there is severe lack of furniture and equipment. On the one hand, they lack manpower while, on the other hand, even the available manpower are not made technically fit as per the need of the hour. The skilled manpower prefer to switch over to the NGOs, INGOs and other sectors, which is also affecting the effectiveness of the local bodies. Because of political and financial pressures, sometimes an individual is compelled to work in the same place for a prolonged period. Although the government has the objective of providing equal opportunities to women, Dalit and backward people, the same is not reflected in the reality. Despite all these constraints, the local bodies continue to strive to provide service as per the wishes and needs of the people.

It is imperative for the center to devolve its authorities to the local bodies to make them work in the spirit of the local government by identifying and sorting out problems at the local level. The rights of the villagers that have been used by the state should be handed back to them based on proper laws to free the cities, villages and the nation of the conflict. This would require a new set of act and regulation that promote the concept of the local government. By clearly pointing out the works to be carried out by the local bodies, they should be made transparent, responsible and accountable. The central government should only be given limited function to work as facilitator. The number of the districts, villages and cities need to be reduced by rethinking the current geographical division. This should be based on a comprehensive study. Even the election system needs to be reconsidered given the experiences of the past 14 years. It would be appropriate to learn lessons from the problems faced in the past from the officials of the local bodies who were elected on party basis.

An able institution needs to be introduced by setting up a separate Local Service, which is fully authorized to cater to the needs for the skilled manpower for the local bodies so that the local bodies, themselves, can recruit, transfer or relieve its staffs of duties. If there is a provision of allowing the recruitment of skilled manpower on contract, the local bodies can make use of the manpower as and when it requires. The coordination and partnership between the local bodies and civil society needs to be developed to ensure door-to-door service to the citizenry. Minimum qualification should be set for the elected officials and training should be imparted immediately after they are elected. The integrated economic system should be introduced for uniformity in the income/expenditure system of all the local bodies. Around 20 percent of the elected officials (of the local bodies) of the past have been found to be more skilled and experienced than even top elected officials. They can be used as trainers for the benefit of others.

Some guidelines are extremely necessary to make the local bodies strong and effective. They include Participatory Planning Guidelines, NGO Mobilization Guidelines, Monitoring and Evaluation Guidelines etc. Since the existing taxation system in the local bodies has been found to be ineffective, there is a need to conduct a study on the existing acts/regulations to ensure the sustainable resources for them. In the end, only if the local bodies are fully empowered and made able to resolve the local problems at the local level, can the country think of solving problems like unemployment, political anomalies, social anomalies, gender, ethnic and cultural discriminations etc.

(Pradhan is the president of the Rural Development Foundation. For further information contact - kmprdf@mail.com.np)