jibgar-joshi ppt.presentation slides
Abstract
The purpose of the paper is to explore what elements lead to policy formulation and how to improve it. For solving the problems of the society and for satisfying the needs of its people, any nation creates some mechanisms to help it to make policies; and takes decisions that facilitate actions. Even today, the government plays a primary role. And others, people as well as their organizations, are governed by the government to do what it prescribes in the form of its policies. With the increasing complexity in project implementation, the government has invited the private sector to be partners in its pursuit for development. Both the government and the private sector carry out their jobs through appropriate institutions, which enjoy the status of legal entities. This led to a new paradigm in the process of implementation. The politicians as well as the professionals who are playing the key role in the transformation of the Nepali society have used institutions to protect themselves from any sort of risks. It has become difficult to make any one accountable. As a result, the gap between what is planned and what is done has widened; and implementation continued to be weak. With more and more intricacies coming up in the system, the number of institutions grew; and accountability became more and more difficult to be enforced. There is thus the need for the creation of a system where, service provision is encouraged; better services should mean better returns and better incentives. Recognizing this, the paper looks at an alternative to institution building. It works on exploring the ways of transforming institution for evolving appropriate policies at different levels to alleviate poverty by increasing access of the people to services.
The value of governance in general and policy in particular is measured in terms of the quality of the services that the people receive and their level of contentment. The faith of the people in the government policy is eroding. Institutions will thrive only when they do not hinder personal development. The convergence of the individual goal and that of the organization as a whole is necessary for an effective delivery of services. Organizations can shape its members and align them to its goals. They should enjoy autonomy for better performance. We have created organizations under a divide and rule policy for so many years. This means it will not be easy to change the organizational culture in a short span of time. Policy formulation for enhancing social good in any form should therefore deal with institutional requirements at the same time. The paper deals with the limitations of the public and the private sector in enhancing the social good; and highlights how civil societies, NEA in particular, should and could build pressure for change. Instead of working for institutions that are involved in making more rules and regulations that make the system complex and reduce the access of the people to services, NEA should motivate engineers to work with community driven initiatives. The paper underscores the role of technology and the need for efforts on R & D. It focuses on community-based approach as a means of evolving sustainable policies.
Keywords: social good, policy, institution, NEA, civil societies, community initiatives.