Promoting people’s participation in local development efforts has been accepted and hailed by governments in developing countries as the most effective approach towards empowering communities that exist at the periphery of the power centre. Participation-based approach to local development is seen as the ideal way to empowering communities and marginalized groups that are part of these communities. In the case of Nepal, government and non-government agencies have designed their development strategies based on the model of participation-based development. So far majority of the development project reports and academic research have mostly upheld the concept of participation-based development as the prescriptive solution to development challenges. Very rarely do we find a critical review of the participatory based development model that is so widely applied. Therefore, this paper aims to tackle the very concept of participation-based development at the local level in order to assess whether the claims behind this concept as being fitting to Nepal’s development approach are actually true. It analyses three specific claims that are hailed as positive outcomes of the participation-based approach and compares it to the actual practices that exist in the grass root level to see whether these claims can be supported by the evidence found. The policy paper aims to highlight various factors that related agencies involved in local development must take into consideration when applying the concept of participation to development interventions. This paper also aims to provide insight into how communities are perceived by external agents and how this perception needs to be challenged in order to make local development strategies in the future more effective.

addresses issues linked to the implementation of 10% of capital grant allocated to women specific programs by the Ministry of Federal and Local Development (MoFALD). It emphasizes the fact that shortfalls in accountability has led to a failure in ensuring the effective implementation of the allocated funds in needed areas. It not only aims to assess and analyze the level of participation of the desired beneficiaries in women specific development, but also actor- forum accountability relationship in implementation of particular grants. The paper argues that a proper institutional mechanism that is rigorous in establishing checks and balances is essential towards ensuring accountability in implementation of the policy to achieve the desired results.
Despite the existence of relevant guidelines, acts and directives to regulate target specific grants and the presence of accountability mechanisms to hold local government accountable, it is not evident that they are being observed or implemented as directed. The existing accountability framework involves quest for dialogue, set of procedures but does not imply right to impose sanction; an important dimension in accountability framework This paper analyses and assesses the existing accountability framework to implement the Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) strategy and it also looks at the relationship between institutional mechanisms, implementing agents and role of stakeholders in practice. The argument of the paper is made after extensive review of existing constitutional and legal documents and is evidenced by primary data gathered from the field study. The recommendations provided in the paper are based on the conclusions drawn from the findings.

The notion of climate justice has received importance in academic, activist and political
circles globally and in Nepal. Political leaders, climate change activists, movement
leaders as well as the academics hardly miss the point about justice—whether explicitly
or implicitly—while they refer to climate change. Nepal’s climate change policy has also
incorporated the concept. While being so attractive to many groups, the notion has been
hardly discussed to its nuances in Nepal as to how it is implicated to policies and
practices. At the global level, climate justice is mostly understood in relation to the
division between the global North and the South in relation to their contribution to
generation of green house gases (GHGs) and hence the responsibility to reduce it, bearing
the negative consequences and having the capacity to overcome the impacts. However,
within a national context in Nepal, specifically in the formulation of public policies and
programs, it remains unclear how the notion of climate justice has been conceptualized or
operationalized. This paper explores through how Nepal’s climate change policy-making
and international representation conceptualize the notion and identifies their nuances and
contradictions. It examines two specific policy instruments, viz., National Policy on
Climate Change and National Adaptation Program of Action (NAPA) in regard to their
commitment to and formulation of climate justice. This paper suggests that, while the
notion of climate justice is conceived in contradictory and sometimes opposite ways, it
offers a discursive device for articulating the needs and voices of backward groups. We
also suggest that Nepal’s environmental policy-making requires a change of approach to
deliver the government’s commitment to climate justice.

The governments from many developing and developed countries including Nepal have been making an effort to introduce the merits of Information Technology (IT) through policies, directives and regulations in order to transform service-delivery in their countries and fully embrace e-governance. This paper aims to analyze the efforts of the Nepalese government in introducing e-governance in state institutions responsible for delivering core services to the citizens of the country.

Despite the fact that Nepal’s first IT policy was formulated in 2000 AD, the plummeting E-Government Development Index (EGDI) and the existing shortcomings in the implementation of e-governance in delivering services reflect the existence of a huge gap between the policies, related guidelines and acts/laws outlined in paper and their implementation on the ground. This research identifies and analyzes these implementation gaps in detail.

In order to discuss the existing policy gaps and highlight the shortcomings, two representative Kathmandu-based government offices, the Department of Passport (DoP) and the Office of Company Registrar (OCR), are selected as case studies as they target two different yet specific types of service seekers; the general public and businesses. Since market and service seeker side constraints are discounted from this research, only those policies and directives that enhance the government of Nepal’s (GoN) e-service delivery capacity are picked. The United Nations’ (UN) four-stage e-governance model’s top tier phase, the connected phase, is chosen as the ideal stage of e-governance. Each selected IT policy agenda is then assessed under different sub-headings to identify which stage of the e-governance model it facilitates, what other government moves support that particular policy and what supportive or contradictory practices exist in the two representative offices. The research indicates that the government of Nepal has formulated and executed some policies that support a more mature phase of e-governance without paying heed to establishing the necessary foundations for successfully implementing the changes envisioned. Furthermore, the research shows that the lack of constant revision and policy-monitoring has resulted in a rather inefficient and outdated policy document in the context of the current agenda for e-governance. The lack of realistic timelines and milestones for most of the programs highlight that the strategies have not been assessed rigorously for their feasibility and possible risks making the implementation inefficacious. Also, the blindfolded acceptance of consulting reports produced by external agencies without necessary homework and thorough review has resulted in sub-standard works. Based on these findings and observations, the research concludes that given the lack of pre-requisites in place and the lack of commitment from the government offices, most of the government offices are still at the primitive transactional phase of e-governance which is a long way from attaining the ideal phase.