Challenges of Good Governance in Nepal (With Reference to Assessment of Himalayan Buffer Zone Community Forestry UsersGroup, Chaurikharka-1, Solukhumbu)

Abstract

Good governance in Nepal requires the citizens to forge a single national identity, an identitysustained by a democratic partnership among the state, the market, the civil society and thecitizens. The greatest strength lies in their capacity to enlist the confidence of ordinarycitizens to shape the society and its vision. Without strengthening the national integritysystem and proper separation and devolution of power, transparent, just and responsivegovernance cannot be realized. The primary objective of the study is to explore the challenges of good governance in Nepalwith an assessment of Himalayan Buffer Zone Community Forestry Users Group(HBZCFUG)at Chaurikharka-1, in Solukhumbu district. The vectors of good governance–state, market and the civil society have beendeeply analyzed. The research has alsoexploredthe four folds of good governance in the CFUG namely transparency, accountability,participation and predictability depicting their impacts androles for development. Community Forests of Nepal, which has become renowned, has certain underlying challengesof goodgovernance, and this study has tried its best tosearcha remedy to redeem any suchhardships. All together, 80 respondents were taken including the16 key informants toobtainprimarydatafor accomplishingthetask.As a research methodology, Stratified SamplingMethod wasapplied. Apart from this, household survey,field observation, key informant interview, focusgroup discussion,PRA and RRA,etc.were alsoconducted. Theuniverse was purposivelyselectedand the respondents were randomly selected. The overall situation of good governance in the CFUG is not satisfactory. Thesatisfactionlevel of good governance in theHBZCFUGis onlyabout 38%.The major challenges of goodgovernance in the CFUG are (a) poor representation of poor, marginalized people andwomen, (b) lack of accountability among leaders of the CFUG, (c) improperand ineffectivemobilizationof resources, (d) lack of transparency among the leaders of the CFUG, (e) lack of predictability and(f) lack of active participation of the local people. Thus, it is recommended to improve the transparency, accountability and predictability of the leaders to strengthen good governance in the CFUG. Apart from this, active people's participation especially of women, poor, disadvantaged and the marginalized section is to be created through incentives and motivation.