Governance and Citizenship from Below: Views of Poor and Excluded Groups and Their Vision for a New Nepal

This Overseas Development Institute (ODI) Working Paper, No. 301, is a synthesis of a 2007 participatory governance assessment, made by the Nepal Communist Party (NPC), Nepal Participatory Action Network (NEPAN), and ODI, commissioned by the Department for International Development - United Kingdom (DFID - UK), on governance and state-citizen relations as experienced by economically poor and excluded groups. It seeks to contribute by offering a window on grassroots citizens’ views on the key priorities to tackle in Nepal’s early post-conflict era, exploring economically poor and excluded groups’ vision for a new Nepal.

Drawing on modified participatory rural appraisal (PRA) techniques and tools, this participatory governance assessment was designed as a series of focus group discussions. Among the document's findings, those related to communication include the following:

• Excluded groups trying to obtain services may meet with a language barrier as an impediment to service.
  
• Support for peace among excluded groups focuses on calls for sustainable peace and renewed development efforts, not on calling for revenge, retaliation, or even transitional justice.
  
• Excluded groups emphasised that they had not previously been consulted by government (in this case the National Planning Commission), but that they were eager to contribute to dialogues on restructuring the state, especially among Dalit communities and women, but complained about a lack of information and absence of awareness-raising/educational initiatives at the village level.
• The importance of access to information - a major component of economically poor people’s sense of social exclusion - is based on their lack of access to information about entitlements, services, procedures to access the resources available through new projects, opportunities for civic participation, avenues through which to channel demands for change, legal rights, and political reforms. "There is a strong sense that local elites control information flows (especially district level vis-à-vis village level governments) in order to maintain their positions of power. Improving communication channels between government officials and service providers on the one hand, and citizens, on the other, emerged as a critical first step in strengthening citizen-state relations, and reducing elite capture of incoming resources and opportunity."
  
• In order to address the multi-layered power inequalities (class, caste, ethnicity, gender), a policy priority that emerged was for the implementation of awareness raising and civic education initiatives, not only for those who face discrimination, but especially to those who benefit from systems of dominance and injustice - men, the wealthy, and "upper caste" groups.
  
• Efforts to communicate the rationale behind affirmative action measures to address caste, ethnicity, and gender-based social exclusion will also be important if the government and other development actors are to minimise a sense of resentment among other groups and address possible sources of tension/conflict.
  
• "Connectivity, including better roads, accessible and affordable telecommunications and reliable postal services, also emerged as an important priority."

The report concludes with policy suggestions that are designed to help to capitalise on people’s enthusiasm for peace and to sustain the expectations of citizens about peace dividends, especially in terms of services and accountable government structures. Among them are the following communication-focused suggestions:

• "...[A] focus on a united, clearly communicated approach to state restructuring and the creation of a new Nepal is necessary. This process requires the provision of information about political reforms and concerted civic education efforts ... at the district and village levels in order to meet demand....
  
• [T]here is an indication that the Constituent Assembly of Nepal should publicly recognise the social exclusion and political under-representation of Madeshis, and devise affirmative action measures. In turn, the rationale behind and evidence for the importance of these measures should be clearly communicated to the broader public.
  
• A national consultative exercise should take place in order to decide on priorities in all 75 districts....
  
• ...[Citizens] want to be better informed and more frequently consulted by local government officials because a major component of their sense of social exclusion is based on their lack of access to information... and avenues through which to channel demands for change and political reform processes.
  
• In order to address civic perceptions that local elites control information flows..., there is an urgent need to strengthen communication channels between government officials and service providers, and citizens. Three measures will drive this process forward; firstly, at the national level, policy-makers should consider developing a Freedom of Information Act...; secondly, at district and village level, authorities should make use of community radio... and invest time in more regular face-to-face consultations and public meetings; finally, given the popularity of female community volunteers and social mobilisers, greater investment in such auxiliary information brokers is another possible option.
  
• ...[A] programme of civic education and legal literacy appears to be of critical importance....What is needed is a longer-term process, supported by community mobilisers, to whom citizens can turn for advice and support and/or legal advice centres - such... women paralegal committees...."