Governance Reform is a continuous process to improve the efficiency of public service delivery, accountability, and transparency in governance. It aims to improve the accountability and transparency of the government and government institutions in order to provide the public services at the doorstep of the citizens at the minimum possible cost and acceptable quality.
The trend of Governance Reform can broadly be classified into:
- Pre-NPM reforms
- NPM reforms
- Post-NPM reforms
1. Pre-NPM Reforms: (New Public Management)
- This reform broadly covers the period from 1960 to 1980 and is known as the traditional reforms of governance.
- Under this reform, the priority was given to the establishment of new government organizations and their expansion across different geographical regions.
- These reforms tried to minimize the leakages of public money and provide public services.
- In order to avoid misuse of public resources, the reform focused on the formulation of policies, rules, regulations, and required documentation to verify the service user.
- This leads to the growth of Red-Tapism in bureaucracy, which becomes more process-oriented and document-based, which increases the cost of public services.
- The bureaucrats/government officials converted to rulers rather than service providers, which increases the inefficiency and corruption in government institutions.
2. New Public Management Reforms
- NPM focuseson the efficiency and productivity, which suggests using the private sector management approaches in the public sector.
- This reform covers a broad period from 1980 to 2010, where the emphasis was given to adopt private sector-like management practices in the government institutions.
- This reform primarily focused on the independence of the institution and efficiency. So, the government institution should focus on performance-based management.
- NPM focused on cost-effectiveness, efficiency, and service quality by adopting private sector management practices.
- It is based on neo-liberal economic thinking, where the role of the government is to facilitate the private sector.
- So, NPM advocates for outsourcing except for the core functions of the government institution.
- This reform suggested minimizing the role of the government.
- The government officers should work as the servants of the people, not the masters or rulers.
- So, the government officers are provided training for capacity building to adopt the private sector management practices.
- For example, after the restoration of the multiparty system in 1990 (2046BS), Nepal adopted liberal economic policies, reduced the number of government employees from around 1 lakh to 80 thousand, following the recommendation of the higher-level administration reform commission.
2. Post-NPM Reforms
- Due to emphasis on independence of the government institutions for their efficiency and cost effectiveness, as suggested by the NPM, by the end of the 1990s or early 2000s, there emerged coordination failure.
- This increases the cost of government and poor interaction and harmonization with the government organization.
- Such growing complexity leads to the new forms of reforms known as post-NPM reforms.
- This reform emphasizes collaboration, coordination, and co-production of the public services.
- It aims to promote an integrated and holistic approach to public service delivery.
- The core of this reform is citizen engagement and participation with effective coordination among the stakeholders of the development.
- So, this reform highlights accountability, transparency, and inclusion.
- The core approaches of these reforms are collaborative governance, whole of government, and digital governance.
- Since the public issues are complex and cross-sectoral, they need an integrated and coordinated approach of governance to deal with the issues.
- At present, the reform is moving towards digital governance, which focuses on the use of digital technology by the government to design, deliver, and regulate the public services as well as interaction with the citizens, private sector, and other stakeholders for transparent, efficient, and accountable government.
Features of New Public Management
- Adoption of private management by the public/government sector.
- Minimum/limited government role
- Performance-based contract management of government
- Not a ruler but a servant
- People are the source of income/livelihood
- Cost-effective and efficient quality
- Autonomy/independence of the government institution
The governance reform in Nepal can be classified into three broad periods: the reforms before 1900, the reforms during 1990 – 2015, and post 2015 reforms.
1. Pre-1990/Panchayat Period Reform (1960-1990)
During this period, it was the Panchayat Regime that was centralized, controlled, and bureaucratic in governance. It was the period of partylessness, the Panchayat system under the monarchy of the King. There was limited citizen participation and a highly centralized authority. Governance was focused on control and stability. The governance reform during this period was –
- Centralization of Power: The Panchayat constitution of 1962 institutionalized centralized government, assuming that it could help to control and stabilize the economy.
- Administrative expansion, such as the establishment of ministries. development regions, zones, and district administration. This reform was aimed at expanding the civil service for administrative outreach to the general public.
- Development-oriented top-down governance: development planning was used as a governance tool where the development plan was designed and implemented without the participation of the public.
- Decentralization of the government services: Established different government institutions at the development region, zone, district, and local level, such as Gau Panchayat.
- Policy and Legal reform: To minimize the misuse of public money, different policies, laws, and bylaws were implemented, which focused on the documents and processes to verify the real beneficiaries.
2. 1990-2015 (Democratic and Transitional Period)
During this period, the governance reform was primarily focused on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the public services delivery based on the philosophy of new public management (NPM). The major reforms during this period are:
- Democratization and constitutional governance: Shift from the partyless Panchayat system to a multiparty democratic system. The constitution of 1990 ensured fundamental rights, separation of powers, and the interim constitution of 2007 introduced positive discrimination or inclusion in the political and administrative system.
- Decentralization and local governance: The Local Self-Governance Act 1999 was enacted to bring governance closer to the people, devolution of authority to the District Development Committee (DDC) and municipalities to the Village Development Committee (VDC).
- Transparency and Accountability reform: Various legal instruments to control corruption and promote transparency were introduced. For example, the establishment of the
- Inclusive governance: The provision of marginalized and disadvantaged groups or communities, such as reservation in civil service, mandatory provision of inclusion in local, provincial, and central legislature.
- Bottom-up approach of planning: Development planning started from a bottom-up approach to ensure public participation. i.e., the participatory governance system.
- Reform in bureaucracy: In the early 1990s, the principle of NPM was introduced and reduced the number of civil servants to make it smaller. Performance-based management was introduced, and capacity building for civil servants was implemented in order to improve the behavior and public service delivery.
- Reform in autonomy and the government institution: To improve the public service delivery, various policies were executed to provide operational freedom and autonomy to the government institutions.
- Reform in public participation: People’s participation was given a central focus, and their participation was made possible in each stage of the project cycle.
3. 2015 – (Till Date)
The constitution of Nepal 2015 made a significant development of the political system and governance. The constitution has established three tiers of government, such as federal, provincial, and local, and the devolution of power is constitutionally guaranteed. The new constitution is the result of a long struggle of the Nepali citizens in order to write the constitution by themselves or through their own representatives.
After the enactment of this new constitution and federal structure, there have been various reforms in governance, and among them, the major reforms are:
- Federalism and Devolution of Power: It is the biggest governance reform in Nepal’s history. The constitution has seperated 7 the country into 7 provinces, 753 local level governments with a constitutional guarantee of the power devolution.
- Strengthening local governance: The local governments are being developed as the primary service delivery units. The Local Government Operation Act 2017 (स्थानीय सरकार संचालन ऐन) has given more rights to the local government for public service delivery. There is a directly elected representative. The local government can make development planning, revenue, and expenditure planning by itself.
- Digital and e-governance: Technology is used to improve the transparency and cost-effectiveness of public services. The priority is on the use of digital technology, such as the online registration of businesses, online payment for government services, etc. The Digital Nepal Framework 2019 is in operation, which aims to promote digitalization. For example, the Nagarik App helps to reduce the cost of general public in documentation, payments, etc.
- Performance-based government and accountability: In recent years, the emphasis has been on result-based management. There is a practice of performance contracts in the bureaucracy and government.
- Participatory governance: There is more focus on public participation in the development agenda. The development plan of all levels of government is developed from a bottom-up approach. There are some provisions such asthe formation of a Consumer group (उपभोक्ता समूह), public hearing (सार्वजनिक सुनुवाई), etc.
- Integrated governance approach: Realizing the interdependence and complexity in the public service delivery. The integrated approach of governance has been in practice. For example, the local level government provides the public service by creating the one spot service center. There is one window policy for the foreign investor and export industries. The digital framework and apps are developed to unify the public services, such as Nagarik App.
What are the Problems in Plan Implementation in Nepal?
1. Capacity Constraint
- Financial constraint
- Technical constraint
- Human resource constraint
2. Coordination failure
- Policy coordination
- Legal coordination
- Organizational coordination
- Behavioral coordination
3. Unable to assess the risk and uncertainty.
4. Lack of effective public participation and poor ownership
5. Red-tapism and bureaucratic hurdles.
6. Supply-based development programs and projects
7. Lack of an effective reward and punishment mechanism.
8. Over-regulation of the oversight agencies.
9. Frequent transfer of government officials.
10. Political instability and policy inconsistency.