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The Government of Nepal (GON) is committed to bringing about tangible changes in the local governance and community development process. The aim is to improve the living standards of the people through community led development, efficient service delivery, good governance, based on a democratic value system and rights-based approach and inclusive development efforts subsequent to the restructuring of the state. This will be based on the conceptual framework of federal, inclusive and participatory development, with the implementation of local level development initiatives under the leadership of local autonomous government. The focus of the local development programme will be to support poverty alleviation measures based on the fundamental premises of inclusive development, and through the mobilisation of local resources and use of local skills and technology opportunities - all with the direct involvement of local citizens and community organisations.
At present, a major task of the GON is to substantiate the objectives, policies and principles of the Local Self-Governance Act (LSGA), 2055 and to translate the principles of local self-governance into practice through the mobilisation of local bodies and local communities with the facilitation and support of the central line ministries. The LSGA provides the legal basis for the involvement of civil society organisations (CSO) in formulating plans for the local bodies.
A shared commitment to work together for this purpose exists between the Ministry of Local Development (MLD) and the Development Partners (DPs). Given the need of improving local governance and participatory approaches to establish robust accountability of local government to communities, the current political scenarios and the earlier tendency of DPs to pursue their own priorities with discrete programmes in separate geographic areas, this convergence is a major achievement. Now, the need to bring the private and NGO sectors into the planning and implementation process and to enable better engagement of local communities in the local governance reform process to ensure that services are responsive to their needs, has been recognised.
MLD's vision on local governance and community development is to bring improvement in the living standard of the masses through local good governance based on a democratic value system and inclusive development effort subsequent to the restructuring of the state, based on the conceptual framework of federal, inclusive and participatory development, with the execution of the local level development initiatives under the leadership of local autonomous government.
A number of development partners have signed a letter of intent to provide programme support within the areas of local governance and community development. Some development partners intend to provide further support over a longer period of time. Although government structures and systems are likely to change over the coming years, LGCDP will be the first phase of a longer term programme of support to local governance and community development strengthening both the demand and the supply sides of local service delivery and good governance to attain the LSGA spirit. The programme strongly supports MLD's vision of local development and self-governance to bring good governance and development interventions to the people by maintaining fiscal discipline, correcting mismanagement, delays and non-transparent procedures.
This programme will be the national programme framework for achieving improvements in the system of local governance and community development. The underlying intention of the LGCDP is to move the local governance and community development sector towards a Sector Wide Approach (SWAp) for decentralisation.
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