Transition to Federalism in Nepal

Abstract

Nepal embarked on a full-fledged federal system with the adoption of a new Constitution in 2015. Progress has been made in terms of setting up of key institutional structures, and strengthening the regulatory environment for federalism, and to some extent staff deployment. But significant gaps still exist between the needs and existing capacity at all levels of government. A Federalism Capacity Needs Assessment (FCNA) was conducted in 2018-19 for the Government of Nepal (GoN). The FCNA used a broad definition of capacity, including organizational (physical and human) and institutional (laws and regulations) elements. This paper presents progress in the implementation of federalism based on the findings of the FCNA.

Visualising adoption processes through a stepwise framework: A case study of mechanisation on the Nepal Terai

“…Additionally, the limited identification of Government, NGO and project influence in obtaining information may also reflect social hierarchy dictating access to information, alongside the current extension void present due to the rapid transformation from a central to local government extension mandate in line with the 2015 constitution. In this process, district-level agricultural officers have been disbanded and new systems to enable agricultural extension are still being developed, though those that have been formed have been found to have limited capacity ( Thapa et al, 2019 ; Yilmaz et al, 2020 ). Babu and Sah (2019) have previously shown that the capacity of human resources, infrastructure, financial funds and other resources is currently insufficient to enable a successful extension system.…”