Background
Climate
change, disaster and environment management policies, plans, programs and
institutions are formed and implemented in isolation in Nepal and hence it has
been realized that the silos approach has neither contributed to development
nor to conservation at par the expected level instead both aspects are being weakened
day by day. Local Adaptation Plan of Action (LAPA), Community Adaptation Plan
of Action (CAPA), Local Disaster Risk Management Plan (LDRMP), Community
Forests Operational Plans, Local Disaster Risk Management Plan, Buffer Zone
Management Plan among others developed and being implemented through forming
respective committees at district and community level. It has resulted in duplication
and gaps of scarce resources and has implicated on community dissatisfaction
and inadequate people participation in the respective sectors. Therefore, Nepal
needs coordination framework that helps bringing together the various sectoral policies,
plans, institutions, programs, indicators and stakeholders and yields synergic effects.
The strategy ultimately contributes to increasing people participation in environment
management and development. Initiation should be taken from local government. MoFALD
having mandate to strengthen capacity, coordination, collaboration,
facilitation and monitoring of local bodies, developed a planning and coordinating
framework called Environment Friendly Local Governance Framework (EFLG-F) in
2013. It stresses on the need of greater collaboration, cooperation and
partnership amongst conservation and development stakeholders ranging from
household to policy makers while planning and implementing environment and
development activities. The article intends to introduce EFLG, its
implementation strategies and approaches in Nepal.
Environment Friendly Local Governance Framework
EFLG concept has been evolved
with the notion that environment conservation should be begun from household
level. In this regard, household can be judged whether it has practiced
environment friendly behaviors through attaching various sector based result indicators.
The indicators have been developed with the premises that it helps assessing
result based monitoring mechanism. In addition, the EFLG Framework helps local
government to design and integrate environmental activities into local bodies' 14
step planning process.
To create synergic effect on
implementation, the document provisions various coordination committees at
various tiers ranging from Village Development Committee (VDC) to Municipality
to District to National Planning Commission Level. The roles of these various
committees are to strengthen collaboration and promoting integrated planning
process from VDC/Municipality to District Development Committee (DDC) to
Central Level. To implement the concept, capacity of Policy Makers, District
Environment Energy and Climate Change Sections, local service providers and
citizen and their organizations need to be assessed and strengthened. The
enhanced capacity will be realized in accountable and credible service
providers and empowered and participation of citizens in planning process.
Goal
The
long term goal of EFLG is to contribute to poverty reduction through promoting
environment friendly local governance. The purpose of the EFLG is to enhance
capacity of local government toward adopting green development path through
making effective service delivery and community empowerment. It aims at mainstreaming
pro-poor, inclusive, and gender responsive environmental, climate change, and
disaster risk reduction criteria into local government policies, plans,
systems, structures, mechanisms and working procedures. Local Governance and
Community Development Program (LGCDP-II) has roll out the EFLG Framework by
incorporating the principles of sustainable development, climate change
adaptation and disaster risk management under umbrella of EFLG.
The Local Governance and Community Development
Programme-II (LGCDP-II) is a national Programme executed by the Ministry of
Federal Affairs and Local Development (MoFALD) since July 2013. It is a follow
up of LGCDP-I (2008 -2013). It is being jointly financed by the Government of
Nepal and 14 development partners (DPs) under a number of different financing
arrangements. The overarching goal of
the Programme is to contribute towards poverty reduction through better local
governance and community development. The goal of the Programme is aligned with
national goal and will contribute either directly or indirectly the achievement
by empowering citizens and responding to their priority needs, while at the
same time strengthening decentralized local governance, community development
and integrated service delivery.
The purpose of the Programme is to improve local
governance for effective service delivery and citizen empowerment. It provides an overall framework for: (i)
strengthening decentralization and devolution processes; (ii) improving local
governance system to ensure effective delivery of basic services; and (iii)
empowering citizens, especially women, children and disadvantaged groups (DAGs)
and their institutions.
LGCDP II is designed as a framework programme with
four outcomes and nine outputs. The four outcomes of LGCDP-II encompass a wide
range of capacity development such as citizens’ empowerment (demand side
improvements), improvement of institutional, processes, and administrative and
financial capacities of local bodies (supply side improvements), enhanced
service delivery, integrated planning processes and citizen-centric policy
development.
Further,
EFLG will be mainstreamed into integrated planning, budgeting, monitoring and
evaluation and coordination amongst local governance actor, which is one of the
outcomes of LGCDP – II. The government intends to declare at least 100 VDCs and
100000 Household as EFLG by 2016/17.
Implementation Strategy
The program has been brought upto
the door step of local people through LGCDP -II Framework, as it acts as
vehicle for bringing the EFLG agenda upto settlement level through reforming
and strengthening local governance. To make the program more effective and
efficient, program has been implemented following sector wide approach. The
other strategies for implementation include:
Behavior change
EFLG demands sustained changes in service delivery and
users behaviors in eight focus areas, namely, sustainable agriculture and
promotion of greenery and beautification; waste management and pollution
control; renewable energy and energy efficiency; biodiversity and ecosystems
conservation; water, sanitation and hygiene; climate change, disaster risk
reduction, sustainable urban planning and infrastructure development and
environmental governance. Given the broad range of activities that fall under
EFLG, a communication strategy has already been drafted that is structured
around the eight campaign areas. Advocacy, social mobilization and programme
communication activities have been proposed for each of the areas. Positive
behavioral change in each of the areas of work of EFLG will demand sustained
campaigning and occur in time scales between 5 to 10 years.
Course and fine filter
approach
EFLG needs to be implemented
following course and fine filter approach. Awareness, capacity development and
monitoring activities need to be implemented across the country through the
LGCDP – II framework. In the meantime, EFLG has been implemented intensively in
selected 14 districts, 54 municipalities and 60 VDCs of the country. Once the
result come out from the selected sites, then the learning shall be documented
and the program will be rolled out across the country. Moreover, other development
partners would also be encouraged to initiate EFLG in the other selected sites
as an align program. It is hoped that the partners shall maintain close
coordination with local bodies while implementing the EFLG program and provides
reports to the MoFALD. MoFALD shall facilitate the EFLG implementation process
at local level.
Service and communication
together
An arrangement will be made so
that goods and services together with EFLG information shall be brought upto the
doorstep of target households. The strategy helps motivating people from
household level and thereby encourages them to participate in the environment
friendly development activities. It ultimately helps changing their behavior. Multiple
entry points; such as Citizen Awareness Center and Ward Citizen Forums for
planning, Capacity of Ward Citizen Forum will be further enhanced so as to make
them able to bring environmental agenda in the local development planning and
budgeting process and environment will be considered as an integral part of the
community infrastructure development activities. Various electronic as well as
print media shall be used to disseminate the EFLG information and its
usefulness.
Integration into
local development plan and programs
Local Self Governance Act 1999,
provisions to develop periodical plan of all district, municipality and VDCs. The
13th (2070/71 – 2072/73) approach paper stresses on the need of
formulating annual work plan based on the periodical plan. Even the sectoral
plans should be prepared in line with the district periodic plans so that a
consistency can be ensured and to some extent the strategy helps maintaining
linkage amongst local government and line agencies. MoFALD now is in a mission
of preparing periodic plan of all 75 districts in 2073/74. To maintain
consistency and uphold standard, the Ministry has prepared "District periodic
plan working procedure 2070" that aims at integrating environment friendly
local development activities into the Periodical Plans. Local bodies will be
encouraged to invest part of their annual income into environment friendly
development activities following performance based grant system modality.
Capacity development
LSGA authorizes local government
for preparing and implementing development plans for the natural resources that
fall under their jurisdiction. In this
regard, the leadership capacities of the local bodies need to be further strengthened.
In addition, the local government should have some sort of knowhow on the
issues of mainstreaming environment, climate change and disaster into local
development plan and budgets. In addition, capacity of local bodies will be
enhanced in adopting environment and development bridging tools like
Environment Management Plan, IEE and EIA as and when necessary. Capacity of
local communities specially citizen awareness center and ward citizen forums
shall be strengthened so as to make them able to put demand for environment
friendly local development programs at local development plan and budgets.
Result based
management
There are a total of 346 indicators.
Three types of indicators are designed – advanced, basic and special. There are
163 advances, 139 basic and 42 special indicators. The indicators for
household, settlement, wards, VDC/Municipality, DDC and public offices has been
identified in consultation with the wider stakeholders ranging from field level
to policy makers.
Volunteer incentive
Volunteer incentive based
approach will be adopted to encourage household, settlements, village and
districts to opt environment friendly behaviors and practices. To trigger the
process, environment friendly household, settlement, ward, VDC and DDC will be
appreciated through provisioning them with various incentive schemes such as
discount on land taxes, infrastructure support, availing computers for public
offices, awarding various colored tags and supporting with hoarding boards.
Implementation Approach
Existing
institutional arrangements to deliver the Local Governance and Community
Development Programme (LGCDP II) has been utilized to roll out EFLG activities.
Environment Friendly Local Governance (environmental safeguards, climate change
adaptation mitigation and disaster risk management (ES-CCM-DRM) has been
considered as one of the major thematic areas of LGCDP II. Besides, the entire
programme of MoFALD on environment and local adaptation to climate change will
be aligned with EFLG goals. Advocacy, social
mobilization and programme communication activities have been proposed for each
of the eight campaigns.
The Environmentally
Friendly Local Governance Framework Strategy seeks to instill the idea of
environmental conservation in a systematic manner on multiple levels, from
central ministries right down to individual households. Moving beyond
policy-level interventions, the strategy seeks to reach out to local
governmental bodies and households and consolidate environmentally sustainable
practices. Building greater compliance to environmental standards, greater
resource and fund mobilization are among the agendas of work of EFLG. Some key
aspects of the public policy include:
· Setting
up an apex-level EFLG Direction Committee formed to coordinate / create
synergies among various ministries and divisions and Central Implementation
Committee under MoFALD. Establishing at the
district, municipality and village level, District Development Committee (DDC),
municipality and Village Development Committee (VDC) EFLG Coordination
Committees respectively. Strengthening capacity of District Environment, Energy
and Climate Change Section to include a strong climate change focus. Establishing
and mobilizing Environment Management Special Fund that will be mobilized under
District Development Fund. The entire environment related management fund would
be channelized into the District Environment Management Special Fund under
District Development Fund.
· Adopting
a “Volunteer based approach” to encourage environmentally friendly behavior at
household, ward, village and district levels. Incentives for change include
letters of appreciation, accreditation of areas as “environmentally friendly
areas”, other infrastructural support, and discount on taxes or
performance-based grants for institutions. Organize activities
that engage citizens in Poverty, Environment, Climate and Disaster risk
reduction (PECD) considerations and develop comprehensive indicators at
multiple levels to measure the extent of engagement. Households, Village Development Committees and District
Development Committees should be engaged frequently. This includes periodic
visits to households, VDCs; DDCs to encourage continuing to practice EFLG
expected practices. There is a need to build on
existing positive behaviors conducted by innovators (households, VDCs, DDCs or
private sector) to show how EFLG behaviors can lead to increased human
wellbeing.
· Services related to
EFLG focus areas (namely, in Sustainable
Agriculture and promotion of greenery and beautification; Waste management and
pollution control; Renewable energy and energy efficiency; Biodiversity and
ecosystems conservation; Water, Sanitation and hygiene; Climate change,
disaster risk reduction, sustainable urban planning and infrastructure
development and Environmental governance) will roll out in parallel to the
communication strategy. If no services are provided, communication activities
will fail at changing behaviors. It is highly important
that all stakeholders, engaged in rolling out activities conducting to EFLG
goals.
