Multipurpose Village Women Group Clinic: Proper Utilization of Women Focused Budget

Prakash Paudel, Village Development Committee (VDC) Secretary of Mahadevsthan in Dhading stated that until two years ago, the women focused budgets of Mahadevsthan VDC, were spent in road construction. However, since last year, with the lobbying of the women groups of the VDC who became aware of the targeted budget through the Social Mobilization Program of LGCDP II, now has diverted the budget to establish and strengthen Village Women Group Clinics.

Village Women Group Clinic at Ward Number 5 of Mahadevsthan VDC provides maternal health care services and vaccination via Village Health Worker, avails early childhood education to their children, and provides general medicines such as, antiseptics and citamol. In addition, the Clinic has become a venue for holding regular meeting of the Women Group.  This was made possible with the active engagement of the Women Group - a group of 27 women that constitutes of marginalized groups, mainly Chepang, Bhujel, Dalit, and Tamang. Shanti Nepal, a local NGO supported in the formation of groups with the objective of empowering women and working for their rights.

The Women Group had the opportunity to learn about VDC planning process, annual planning, and policy provision of women focused budget and programme through social mobilization programme of the VDC, said Nirmala Bhujel, a Social Mobilizer of the LGCDP II Programme. Likewise, the Women group also became aware on accessing VDC resources to fund development initiatives. Thus, the Women Group became encouraged to attend regular VDC meetings, thereby empowered to be involved in the local level planning process.

The group sensed that women focused budgets had not been spent properly. Hence, they lobbied with the VDC Council to construct a multipurpose Village Women Group Clinic in their ward last year from the women targeted budget. The Mahadevsthan VDC Council allocated Rs, 80,000 to support the construction. The total estimated cost of the building was Rs. 5, 00,000 during the fiscal year 2071/72. The group then accessed Rs. 50,000 from DDC. Local NGOs - Shanti Nepal and Prayas Nepal extended its support for building the roofs, providing furniture and carpets respectively. Additionally, each member of the Women Group on an average contributed Rs. 5000 each.

Thus, the Women Group became empowered after getting information on targeted budget via social mobilization programme of VDC, thereby rightly directing the budget in supporting women via formation of multipurpose Village Women Group Clinic.

The report was prepared based on consultation with Mahadevsthan VDC Secretary, Social Mobiliser and a few women in Mahadevsthan on 14^th march 2015.  

Insight from Siraha Visit

March 15, 2015

Introduction

A training on Environment Friendly Local Governance Program (EFLGP) was organized in Siraha for various level stakeholders from 4-7 February 2015. During this time, I have had chance to hold informal interactions with the available Social Mobilisers (SMs), District Governance Expert (DGE), Urban Governance Experts (UGEs) and an Information Communication Technology (ICT) Volunteer.  Below are some of the observation from the field visit:.

Field Staff activities:

It was noted that the facilitating roles of DGE and UGEs are being valued gradually by Local Development Officers (LDOs) and Municipality Executive Officers (Eos) in their respective offices. Social Mobilisers are regularly attending and facilitating Citizen Awareness Center (CAC) and Ward Citizen Forum (WCF) Meetings. In an average, a social mobiliser was reported to spend 13 days (9 days WCF meetings and four days CAC REFLECT Classes) in the field and the rest of the days  in their respective VDCs and Municipality Offices. In office, these staffs extend backup support to the office bearers on necessary daily office activities. These technical assistance staffs supported Constituency Assembly Election in 2013 on raising awareness and making available identity cards to voters. Currently, they are engaged in poverty mapping, vital registration, open defecation free campaign, and municipality cleanup movement amongst others.

Key Notes   

Ms Dev Kumar Suda, a dalit representation in School Management Committee initiated Dalit quota Scholarship:  Members of Citizen Awareness Centers (CACs) are being represented in decision making positions of various public organizations that have contributed towards attaining positive results in socio-economic status of their communities. For instance, Ms. Dev Kumari Suda, Treasurer of Citizen Awareness Center, Fulbariya 4 Bhagawatpur for the first time represented in the School Management Committee of Shree Baj Higher Secondary School, Ward No 8 in Mirchaiya Municipality in March 2013.  Ms. Dev Kumari Suda’s efforts in the decision making body has lead to the school having dedicated scholarships for dalit students. Mr. Jagat Mahara who secured first position in sixth standard last year and now studying in class seven, has been studying under the dalit quota scholarship. Prior to this, the dalit quota scholarship was not being utilized appropriately. The example has lead to understand that the decision making body such as a school management committee should be adequately represented by marginalized groups in order to realize the principle of inclusiveness and equal benefit distribution. “Representation of dalit member in the management committee was an outcome of CAC activity”, said Shiva Kumar Mahara, a Social Mobiliser in Mirchaiya Municipality.

Community specially marginalized group people are empowered greatly: It was noted that CAC members accessing citizenship certificates, having opinions on target group based public goods and services, increased ability to write their own names and signature clearly, registering vital events, are some examples of empowerment. Mr. Chandralal Pashwaan, a Social Mobiliser in Mirchaiya Municipality of ward 4, 5 and 6, states that regular meetings and use of empowerment tools such as Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA), Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and well -being ranking taught during REFLECT classes has aided towards empowering women groups. This in turn has contributed significantly in minimizing incidences of social evils such as alcoholism and playing cards, said him.

Likewise, Bhogendra Mandal, Social Mobilizer, Mirchaiya Municipality responsible for Ward No 2, has worked over 4 years as Social Mobiliser in LGCDP, said CAC members are holding regular meetings and participating local development planning and council in the community building that was built with the support of Rs. 10,0000 from LGCDP.  When the CAC members attended planning meetings, their knowledge and access to local small development activities has increased, stated Mr. Bhogendra Madnal.

Lahan Municipality Executive Officer Mr. Krishna Bahadur Karkee in coordination with local NGO mobilized CAC members of Lahan Municipality to hold regular clean-up campaign in Lahan Municipality. It was observed during the seventh weekly cleanup campaign in Ward number 8 of the Municipality on February 7, 2015, all 30 CAC women members along with Municipality Executive Officers, police, NGOs were involved in the campaign. Social Mobilsier of LGCDP was seen motivating CAC members in the cleanup campaign.

Impacts:

All Social Mobilisers were of the view that with effective Social Mobilization Process in LGCDP, women and marginalized communities are empowered gradually. They have been able to voice their demand in local development planning process. Some CACs are able to accessing resources from VDC and other line agencies and constructing community building and implementing other income generation activities. Some of the women members in CAC groups have got citizen certificates. Target group based activities are being implemented properly as CAC members are being represented in decision making process now. Over and above, principle of inclusiveness and fair benefit distribution are being gradually observed at the field level. Thanks due to the Social Mobilisers for their hard work to make the changes at the grass root level. 

   

Issues:

·        Despite CAC are empowered and accessing public goods and services, their level of awareness on environment friendly sustainable development activities were found low. Therefore, EFLG training participants as well as Social Mobilisers had demand for further capacity enhancement training and awareness at local level. Mobile video show programs on environment friendly development activities at settlement level would be a good strategy for adopting environment friendly development activities at household level. Of course, it demands greater resources and time too.  

·        As said by Social Mobilsiers, they had not opportunities of acquainting with updated policy issues especially social mobilization guidelines. Social Mobilisers were of the view that instead of making requirement for them to attend Municipality Office, they would like to engage in more result oriented field activities.

·    It was observed that UGE and ICT Volunteers were discharging their responsibilities without having fixed table, computer and motorbike in Siraha Municipality. Though the authorization letter has already been reached in Siraha to procure laptop, the computer was yet to be purchased. Moreover, Lahan Municipality has already procured the Laptop as said by Shekhar Karkee, UGE, Lahan.   

·    In the changing context especially when the VDCs are transformed into Municipalities, Social Mobilisers are discharging their responsibilities by travelling upto 17 KM from home. Therefore, the workload of Social Mobilisers may need to be reviewed

·     Of course, need regular follow up to field and enquiring field staff activities encourage them to perform better and many more social transformation story can be documented. 

Environment Friendly Governance Framework: A tool to bring conservation and development together

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, Community Adaptation Plan of Action, Local Disaster Risk Management Plan, 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 it 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.

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 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) will 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 300 VDCs, four Municipalities and four DDCs as EFLG by 2016/17.

Implementation Strategy

The program will be 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 will be 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 shall be implemented following course and fine filter approach. Awareness, capacity development and monitoring activities shall be implemented across the country through the LGCDP – II framework. In the mean time, EFLG will also be implemented intensively in selected 12 districts, 33 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 13^th (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 2071/72. 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) will be 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.

Effective Social Mobilization in Dumarwana

I was happened to visit Dumarwana Village Development Committee (VDC) in Bara District on December 1, 2013. During the visit, I had a chance to meet Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development (MoFALD), Local Governance and Community Development Program (LGCDP) Social Mobiliser (SM) and Community Facilitators (CF) Ms. Lila Nepal and Mr. Nabaraj Dhungel respectively in the VDC premises. Having interest to know their initiatives and achievements, I spare a few minutes talking about their activities and achievements in Dumarwana VDC.

Dumarwana VDC is located just about 4 KM North from Simara Airport. There are 21,000 people and 3,500 household in Dumarwana VDC. The SM supports a total of 65 Saving and Credit Groups, which were formed through Decentralization Local Governance Program (DLGSP), preceded project of the LGCDP, nine Ward Citizen Forums (WCFs) and one Citizen Awareness Center (CAC). In addition, they together with the VDC Secretary undertake regular monitoring of various VDC supported development activities. Ms. Nepal was also involved in educating voters during the recently completed Constituent Assembly Election.

According to them, the VDC has extended support for the CAC with bridge construction, bio-gas installment and toilets construction thus far. However, space has been appeared as a major limiting factor for adopting biogas with attached toilets for many of the CAC members. Despite realization of the greater need of co-ordination and collaboration with sectoral offices mainly forest and agriculture to complement development demand of CAC members, no remarkable progress has been made so far to this end. Moreover, they were of the view that the proportion of beneficiary communities with respect to the given human resources capacity (One SM and one CF) was not matched.

Ms. Nepal with smiling face  said that with their s sincere efforts, a mandatory provision has been made in the VDC to bring local development plan in the VDC Council only through WCFs. Political parties are realizing higher importance of WCF in designing and implementing local level plans and programs and showing interest to be included in the WCF now. In recognition of her outstanding contribution to the local communities, the VDC has topped up with Rs. 2,000 in her monthly basic salary. With the concerted efforts, it has been realized that capacity of CAC members has been strengthened greatly through REFLECT Classes together with infrastructure development supports. An arrangement has also been made to introduce children and maternity health education to the CAC members through Village Women Health Workers.

Now, almost 100% CAC members have initiated timely registration of child birth in the VDC. Also, people are applying for certificate of citizenship immediately when they reach 18. Further, perception of local people has changed towards using common toilets by father-in-law and sister-in-law these days, which had been a cultural barrier since immemorial times. Because of the SM initiative, the VDC has done Council meeting last year within the stipulated time framework said, C.P. Sigdel, Hetaunda Cluster Coordinator of LGCDP.

I am sure that there must have many more similar successful initiatives across the country that needs to be captured in a book so that the lesson learn and best practices helps guiding successful implementation of social mobilization component of the LGCDP – II in the coming days. Further, role of CCU should be focused more towards reporting, monitoring and undertaking studies on how LGCDP interventions have been contributing towards deepening the democratic practices and strengthening the local governances.

Case Report Prepared

by

Ek Raj Sigdel

Investment in rural road in Nepal, how sustainable is it?

Investment in rural road in Nepal, how sustainable is it?

Background

Road construction has been the only development agenda of local government in Nepal for many years. Significant kilometers of rural roads are constructed at the costs of natural resources. Moreover, major proportions of the roads do not support plying vehicles all year around. Considerable proportion of deforestation in Nepal is linked with infrastructure development activities specifically rural road construction. Landslide and flood are causing deaths of 100s of people, especially poor, women and dalit every year. If the present pattern of constructing unsustainable road is continued without paying adequate attention to environment, then further loss of environment is inevitable on the one hand and on the other it will jeopardize the life of many rural poor. To address the issue, efforts are being made from different quarters, though which are not at satisfactory level.

Road in forefront of development agenda

While reviewing Annual Progress Report from 2009 to 2011 of Local Governance and Community Development Program (LGCDP) in Central Development Region of Nepal, it was revealed that compare to other infrastructure development projects, road sub-project carry higher proportion of the budgets. During the period, the region implemented a total of 19,428 sub-projects under heading infrastructure development that includes activities such as road, irrigation, water and sanitation, education, socio-economic development, health, environment and rural electrification. Of the total, 27% sub-projects were road. To carry out the road sub-project the region has invested 42% of the total infrastructure development costs i.e. Rs. 2,317 million. However, it has benefited only 27% of the total 63, 32,000 beneficiary people of the entire infrastructure development sub-projects. Similarly, only about 2% budgets are being invested in environmental development activities such as plantation, bio-engineering and alternative energy resources. In summary, development has given priority to the road sub-projects without keeping environment into account.

Every year each Village Development Committee spends about one million rupees for road construction. They implement the road project even without proper planning and designing. Since the early 1990s, when resources and authority began to be channeled through local government bodies, the use of heavy equipment for road construction such as bulldozers and excavators started to increase. Furthermore, the desire to establish road connections quickly also resulted in the increased use of unsustainable road construction approaches and methods. Unsustainable roads are those that have: (i) no drainage arrangements; (ii) high gradient; (iii) no protection structures in critical places; (iv)no biological protection; (v) no operation and maintenance arrangements or fund; etc.

Now 50,944 km length of rural road networks have been constructed (DOLIDAR, 2012). Of the total 68% road length is earthen road which is pliable during fair weather of 8 months only. Many of these roads are not operational during fairs weather too, due to incompleteness. Therefore people are deprived of year around road access (Shrestha, 2013). Hence, the aforementioned information justifies the fact that the investment in road infrastructure activities is neither environment friendly nor contributing the livelihood improvement of rural poor in Nepal. Therefore, it warrants immediate attention of development planner for formulating and implementing long term infrastructure development plan that benefits both people as well as environment.

What are the practices and implications?

Legal Framework:

The Interim Constitution of Nepal stresses on the need of maintaining a clean environment for good health of people. The Local Self-Governance Act of 1999 empowers District Development Committees (DDCs), Municipalities and Village Development Committees (VDCs) to collect revenues from local resources, including from natural resources, and called on each local government unit to draw up a development plan of its own. The Act authorizes local bodies to plan and implement various development activities including road construction.

The Environment Protection Act 1996 and Environmental Protection Regulation 1997 aims to ensure sustainable development through the integration of environment and development, the sustainable use of natural resources, and the creation of a clean and healthy environment for all people in Nepal. The Act provisions environment assessment, prevention and control of pollution, establishment and operation of environment management special fund, among others. Moreover, it contains rules pertaining to Initial Environment Examination (IEE) and Environment Impact Assessment (EIA). The Sustainable Development Agenda for Nepal (SDAN) envisages integrating environment and development in the national policymaking and planning framework by stressing public participation in ecosystem conservation at the landscape.

The Thirteenth Three-year Plan Approach Paper acknowledges the need of quality roads. In this regards, the plan provisions some criteria to be taken into accounts while constructing roads. According to the criteria road construction priority should be on maintenance, upgrading, and track opening following long term plan and programs instead of constructing new trails and roads in an ad hoc basis. Further, road construction should be guided by District Transportation Master Plans. The Three-year plan stress on the need of preparing and implementing Transportation Master Plans for Municipality and Village Development Committees too (GoV Nepal, 2013)

Institutional Framework

Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development (MoFALD) is in the process of establishing Environment Energy and Climate Change Section in all District Development Committees (DEECCS). The Section will be managed by Environment Friendly Local Governance (EFLG) Coordination Committee. In this connection, Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development is preparing DEECCS Management Guideline. Environment desk has been established in all the District Development Committees (DDCs) and Municipality for overall management of environmental issues. Environmental Focal Persons have also been deputed with job descriptions. To strengthen the district based environmental institutions MoFALD conducted series of training programs to District Facilitators/Municipal Facilitators and District/Municipal Environmental Focal Persons on Social and Environmental Safeguards Framework. District Facilitators and Environmental Focal Persons of District Environmental Desk from 66 districts and Municipal Facilitators and Municipal Environmental Focal Persons from 27 municipalities have already been trained so far.

Programs

Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development with Poverty Environment Initiatives (PEI) Program's support have carried out a study on Economic Analysis of Investment in Rural Roads in 2011.The report stress on the need of adopting balancing approach i.e. labor based and equipment based technology while constructing roads. Towards improving the quality of rural roads, as per the Environment Protection Rule, the Ministry has enforced the mandatory provision of preparing and implementing Initial Environmental Examination for all district roads. The Ministry has approved a total of 163 IEE reports of rural roads since 2005. To ease the IEE report preparation process for district development committees and municipalities the Ministry has also prepared Environment Examination Resource Book in Nepali as well.

To ensure effective implementation of the IEE approved reports, academic institutions such as Central Department of Environment, Tribhuvan University as well as Kathmandu University students have been mobilized as third party monitoring to monitor implementation status of IEE reports of various districts since 2011.

Most of the projects implemented by local bodies fall under Category ‘C’ as per ADB Environmental Guidelines and they do not require IEE/EIA study as per legislations of GoN. Environmental implications of these projects should also be addressed through developing environmental management plan considering it as an integral part of the infrastructure projects. To facilitate the process of preparing EMP, the MoFALD has prepared environmental checklists for various types of infrastructure projects during pre-construction, construction and operation and maintenance stages. With the support of LGCDP, all DDCs have started preparing Environmental Management Plan (EMP) for the infrastructure development activities including road sub projects. In total, 14,498 infrastructure development projects were implemented by local bodies across the country in 2010. However, only a fraction of the entire projects have prepared Environment Management Plans in 2010 (Table 1).

Table 1 Social Environment Safeguard Framework Implementation Status – 2010

Region	Total Projects	Environment Projects	Environment Checklists	Environment Management Plan
Eastern Development Region	2,399	59	51	37
Central Development Region	3,642	154	NA	NA
Western Development Region	3,795	64	251	68
Mid Western Development Region	3,176	120	119	40
Far Western Development Region	1,486	74	74	NA

Source: Annual Progress Report of LGCDP, 2011

Challenges / Gaps

Despite putting concerted efforts from various levels, the road construction are appeared neither environment friendly nor economically viable. Policies and programs are yet to be implemented effectively. The mindset of the local government is that environment is not the part of roads. Referring the resources shortages, local bodies try to bypass the process of integrating environment into road construction. Moreover, the capacity, awareness and understanding towards environment is not adequate.

Recommendations

To ensure the sustainable road construction further efforts are necessary:

·         Enhance the capacity of local bodies to enforce and compliance with the provision of rules and regulations while planning and implementing rural roads

·         In addition to undertaking, IEE and EMP it is necessary to undertake strategic environment assessment

·         Roads must be planned in a participatory way and should be a part of the District Transport Master Plan (DTMP). No road should be financed by local bodies, unless it is included in the DTMP, VTMP and MTMP.

·         Discourage the use of heavy equipments specially bulldozers and rock-blasting materials. However, there are certain situations when equipment based technology can be efficient and less damaging. These situations are in (i) road widening; (ii) ridge alignments; and (iii) long alignments through unpopulated areas that require the establishment of labor camps under LB methodology.

·         LB technology should be encouraged and particularly emphasized in poverty-ridden areas. However, to harness some of the positive features of EB technology, the use of excavators and breaker attachments should be allowed in certain situations. Use of equipment should be complemented by water management structures (side and cross drains), other protection structures and bioengineering works in critical areas.

·         Local road maintenance skills should be developed through training and work during road construction.

·         All rural roads should have adequate operation and maintenance funds and such funds must be complemented by beneficiary contributions raised from the increased income resulting from the road. A system of reasonable taxing of vehicles and goods movement can also be developed for this purpose.

Reference

·         GoV, NPC 2013: Approach Paper, 13th Plan; 2013/14-2015/16

·         DoLIDAR 2069 (2012): "Gramin Sadak Abhilekh" DoLIDAR, Kathmandu.

·         Shrestha. H.R 2013: RURAL ROAD NETWORK IN NEPAL: A massive challenge ahead to improve and maintain. A Journal on Rural Infrastructure Development. Vol.4, Issues 4, Bhadra 2070. 

Minimum Condition and Performance Measures Guidelines includes Poverty Environment Linked Indicators

Background

Minimum Condition and Performance Measure (MCPM) system has been considered as an integral part of the overall governance reform system in Nepal. According to this system, the Government of Nepal annually adjusts the grants to be provided to local bodies (LB) based on their scoring in the MC/PM assessment. LB denotes to District Development Committee (DDC), Municipality and Village Development Committee (VDC). LBs that meet the MC and score high in PM are provided with an additional amount in the form of capital grants and vice versa. With an objective of improving LB performance through an incentive and penalty mechanism, adjusting the size of the grants to the expenditure and performance capacity in key functional areas of LBs and identifying the capacity gaps of LGs in different functional areas, the government of Nepal has adopted the MCPM system. Local Self Governance Regulation (LSGR) 1999 requires assessment of local bodies and permits subsidies to them to be expanded or reduced after having obtained recommendations from the Local Body Fiscal Commission and taking MCPM into considerations.

Environmental Consideration

MCPM Guidelines of DDC as well as Municipalities include a few environmental performance measure indicators. Moreover, number as well as marks allocated for environment performance measure indicators have increased over the years. The following sections compare the difference between DDC and Municipality Environmental MCPM indicators between 2009 and 2012. The MCPM of DDC comprises of 5 sectors and 46 indicators. The five category under performance measures include; i) Planning and program management, ii) Resource mobilization and fiscal management, iii) Budget release, expenses and program implementation, iv) Monitoring, evaluation, communication and transparency and v) Institutional management with clear roles and responsibilities.

Compare to 2008, DDC MCPM Guidelines - 2013 incorporates more performance indicators and marks related to environment. There were only two environmental performance indicators with a total mark of 2.25 in 2008 in DDC MCPM Guidelines. The environment related two indicators include ; i) Annual programs are to be designed based on sectoral development plan such as District Transportation Plan, District Agriculture Plan and ii) environment management fund needs to be established. The number of environmental performance measure indicators increased to four with a total of 8 marks in 2013. The indicators include; i) District Transportation Master Plan (DTMP) approved and implemented,  ii) Energy and environment management plan prepared for infrastructure development activities, micro hydro and energy development project formulated and implemented, local adaptation program planned and implemented, policy formulated from DDC council to use heavy equipments, iii) DDC has formulated policy for environment conservation, disaster risk reduction management and child friendly governance, budget allocated for implementing the policies and programs, and iv)Water, sanitation and health program plan, budget and declaration of open defecation free (ODF).

The MCPM of Municipality comprises of 5 sectors and 40 indicators. The five sectors include; i) Local Self Governance, ii) Financial management, iii) Planning and program management, iv) Institution and human resources development and v) Urban basic service management. While comparing Municipality MCPM Guideline of 2008 and 2012, it was revealed that there were only three environmental performance indicators with a total of 10 marks in Municipality MCPM Guidelines 2008. The environment related three indicators include ; 1) Sanitation and solid waste management following 3R principles - 4 marks, 2) Park, greenery and environment management - As per need of IEE/EIA and provisioned program, budget and human resources for environment management - 2 marks and 3) Disaster management plan developed and endorsed from Municipality Council - 4 marks.

Likewise, there are four environmental performance indicators with a total of 12 marks in Municipality MCPM Guidelines 2012. The indicators include i) Sanitation and solid waste management following 3R principles - 4 marks, ii) Environment management - As per need IEE/EIA implemented, road side plantation, environment awareness program, climate change adaptation activities, environment unit/section established, focal point with ToR identified, environment management fund developed and budget mobilized management - 4 marks, and iii) Emergency service/disaster management - Disaster management plan endorsed from Municipality Council, based on the plan annual plan formulated and approved from the council, fire brigade functional and disaster fund created and money deposited – 4 marks.

Findings  

·      Environmental performance measures indicators as well as marks have increased considerably over the years in both district and municipalities MCPM Guidelines.

·      DDC MCPM Guidelines introduced a few new environments friendly performance measure criteria such as climate change, local adaptation program, disaster risk management and policy for use of heavy equipment in 2012.

·       Municipality MCPM Guidelines 2012 introduced disaster management plan, environment awareness program, climate change adaptation activities, environment unit/section establishment and deputation of environmental focal point with terms and reference in energy and environment unit, establishment of environment management fund and budget mobilization criteria in performance measure.

Acknowledgement

Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development through Local Body Fiscal Commission has developed MCPM tool towards better mainstreaming poverty and environmental criteria in to local development plan and programs. The implementation effectiveness of the MCPM tools is yet to be assessed. Environmental and poverty linked criteria in the DDC and Municipality MCPM Guidelines were inserted with the support of Poverty Environment Initiatives.

 

 

References

·      GON,LBFC; 2013. Minimum Condition and Performance Measures (MCPM) Assessment Manual of District Development Committee (with revision and amendment)

·      GON,LBFC; 2008. Minimum Condition and Performance Measures (MCPM) Assessment Manual of District Development Committee

·      GON,LBFC; 2012. Manual for Assessment of Minimum Condition and Performance Measure (MCPM) of Municipalities

·      GON,LBFC; 2009. Manual for Assessment of Minimum Condition and Performance Measure (MCPM) of Municipalities with some revisions