CENTRE FOR FEDERALISM STUDIES
ACTIVITIES
1. Engaging with the Local Governments for the NASC Faculties (ELGF)
The Constitution of Nepal has enhanced the roles of Local Governments (LGs). The LGs are whole of the government that practice all types of government authority. Being the government at citizen’s doorstep, they are foundation for better service delivery and strengthening state-people relationship. For gaining understanding of Nepal’s governance system NASC has planned a flagship activity for its faculties entitled ‘Engaging with Local Government Governments for NASC Faculties (ELGF)’. The ELGF is a strategic programme to allow NASC faculties to learn about the functioning of the LGs and bring them into public discourse. NASC faculties are dispatched to selected remote Local Governments for period of 10 days. During their stay, the faculties will have intense engagement with LGs to learn about exercise of constitutional power and authority, socio-economic and political dynamics of the LGs, intergovernmental relationship and other dynamics of public governance that are crucial for strengthening federalism. The learnings would be a first hand ‘documented’ case study sharing in larger audience. Based on this exercise, the Centre for Federalism Studies will publish a book to enrich knowledge on federalism of Nepal.
2. Capacity building workshop for Sub –national governments
The capacity building workshops for the elected representatives and the bureaucrats working at the subnational governments are designed to create a learning environment and support them to improve understanding about their responsibilities, and find ways to deliver the constitutional mandates corroborating with citizens’ aspirations. This is crucial because the successful implementation of federalism relies on the understanding and leadership ability of people’s representatives. In addition, the staffs working at sub-national legislation assignments will also have enhanced knowledge to provide professional technical support to legislators.
3. Parliamentarian Conclave for Federal Legislature
The Conclave is a forum to build a common understanding among the members of federal parliament about federalism, parliamentary and legislative policy issues. The Conclave will be an experience-sharing platform where the legislators will interact to each other and have opportunity to appreciate cutting-edge issues of federalism. This initiative will enable the legislators to improve their professional skills on legislative and parliamentary affairs, understand the political economy and technical aspects of policy process in federal forms of governance.
4. Management Development Program for Political Leaders
Management development program for the functional heads of the political parties is a customized programme that deals with different dimensions of federal affairs and public governance. This program would incorporate core components such as leadership competency, public management and contemporary policy issues which are required for the better performance of the functional heads of the political parties.
5. Policy Dialogue
The policy dialogue is conceived to be a platform to engage in dialogue to share the experience of dealing with different forms of governance in federal context. The dialogues would focus on the contemporary issues of federalism such as fiscal federalism, administrative federalism and inter- governmental dynamics and other relevant emerging issues on federalism.
6. Research and Publication
The Center plans to carry out regular research and publication activities on pertinent issues of federalism. The research and publication will provide fresh insights on aspects of implementation of federalism, provide evidence on public governance and create a knowledge base. Currently, the Center is undertaking following research activities:
Handbook of Federalism:
For providing simplified knowledge on constitutional provisions of federalism, the Centre is preparing ‘Handbook of Federalism’ in Nepali language. The publication is mainly targeted to elected representative of Local Government.
Political Economy Analysis of Legislative Autonomy of Local Government:
For understanding the dynamics of legislative process at Local Government, the Centre is conducting political economy analysis. The study will explore and provide insights from the experience of the Local Governments that they are facing while exercising legislative authority.
Provincial Analysis of Nepal National Governance Survey (NNGS) 2017/18:
The NNGS 2017/18 comes with a rich dataset on state of governance at the historical time of state transformation. In order to support the Provincial Government with baseline information in the state of governance, the Center in collaboration with Center for Research and Development at NASC is carrying out Provincial analysis of the NNGS. The report would useful for the provincial government to understand citizen’s perception towards the public governance and design programme for institutionalizing the provincial governance to meet citizen’s expectation.
7. Knowledge Platform:
For documenting the knowledge on different aspects of federalism and provide an in integrated information database on public governance, the Center is preparing an online portal called ‘Federalism Resource Database’. This portal will serve as a common database that will continuously document both historical and recent documents related to federalism, state transformation and public governance. The platform will be made publicly accessible and will provide updated information on major events of federal, provincial and local government.Ac