Ministry of the Federal Affairs and General Administration aims to raise US$ 150 million to boost capacities of provincial and local governments to improve their governance.

A ministry official said developing capacities of sub-national governments is vital because they now handle many federal government rights.

The federal government seeks support of foreign donors for this purpose.

Federal Affairs Ministry Under-Secretary Amrit Lamsal said, “We are planning and holding discussions with interested donors. The final plan would be ready by end of November. We hope to implement the plan from January next year.”

The ministry targets the European Union, Department for International Development of the United Kingdom, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, and Norwegian government to support this plan, he said.

The plan aims to raise $100 million from international donors. The federal government would contribute one-third of global donor amount, provincial and local governments would chip in 10 percent each of the donors’ total contribution, he said.

“The proposed budget for the full plan is over $150 million,” said Lamsal, who is at the Development Cooperation Coordination Section at the Ministry.

The plan has two components- training and challenge fund. Under the training programme, people’s representatives, provincial and local government staff would receive supply and demand driven training.

“Under the supply driven training-training related to financial management, ways to ensure greater participation of community in decision-making, handling judicial duties, making gender sensitive budget, revenue management among others can be provided. Demand driven training can be provided based on the demands of provincial and local governments,” said Lamsal.

To provide training, the plan aims to expand the network of Local Development Training Academy to the all seven provinces.

“The academy will train officials from provincial and local government,” said Lamsal.

To this end, the academy will maintain a roster of institutions and experts and mobilize them to train officials from the sub-national levels.

For challenge fund, the proposed plan aims providing financial aid to provincial and local governments if they propose innovative measures to improve their services.

“For example, a municipality can propose automating all the ward offices and seek funding for it. Such a municipality can receive support from challenge fund,” said Lamsal.

Funds will be disbursed based on sharing costs between federal and provincial governments as well as federal and local governments.

“The concerned provincial or local government must share certain portion of the financial burden,” said Lamsal.

Provincial and local government officials complain they face difficulties in providing services as per the need due to lack of adequate staff and lack of trained human resources.

National Association of Rural Municipality President Hom Narayan Shrestha said, “The federal government

has despatched lower ranked staff to the local levels with limited knowledge. We do not need experts. We need trained staff.”

Training and workshops for people’s representatives and staff would help them to gain knowledge on how to deliver services effectively, he said.