Abstract
The central concern of this paper is urban governance. It reviews urbanization in Nepal and examines the response made to face the problems it has caused. For an emerging economy, its impact extends to the nature of governance. It deals with the evolution of urban governance in Nepal and pleads that it is due to urbanization.
The general premise of the paper is that the best way to ensure good governance is to produce and distribute urban services and goods to the people in the manner they want. It thus recognizes the role of urban governance in development.
Key words: good urban governance, urbanization, local government action and urban services.
I. Introduction
The purpose of this short paper is to examine how urban governance should be shaped in Nepal to cope with the challenges brought about by urbanization. It is an inevitable phenomenon and must be accepted as such. With the democratic changes of 1990, local governments are empowered. The local resource base has widened and more resources are now available for development. But there has not been a proportional change towards good governance. Expenses increased but services per capita decreased. The governance has become too costly, as people have to pay more for less. The willingness to serve the people is lacking and we have not been able to develop mechanisms to provide services in the manner the people need them.
The paper is organized in six parts. Part II gives a glimpse of urbanization in Nepal. The next part tries to depict the impacts in general and in the mode of governance in particular. It also shows how Nepal has been able to cope with it so far. Part IV tests the sustainability of the trend and argues that the strategies of the nineties will not be sustained without an added impetus towards good governance. In the next part, good governance is explored at length and strategies for it in the context of rapid urbanization is discussed. In the last part, the paper concludes that good urban governance is a key to development.
II. Urbanization
Although Nepal is a country of villages, she is urbanizing fast. The urban population as the percentage of the rural population has increased from 3.7 in 1961 to 16.2 in 2001. The level of urbanization is 14%. Apart from 58 municipalities, there are 132 small towns and market centres in Nepal (NPC, p. 349, 2002). If these are also considered, it will be around 23%. The change is manifested in the structure of employment as well.
Table I. Urban – Rural Population of Nepal, 1961 – 2001
(In thousands)
In Nepal, the process is characterized by
· rural to urban migration
· change from agricultural land use to non agricultural
· change from agricultural jobs to off-farm jobs
· change in the level of services and urban amenities
· change in values, behaviors and institutions and
· change form sparse settlements to dense ones.
Table II. Percentage distribution of economically active population by occupation
Nepal, 2001
A good measure of urban development is the level of urban services available therein. Production, job opportunities, urban environment, housing depend on the level of infrastructure and services. The affordability also depends on the income level. The production, distribution and use of urban services should be integrated with urban development process to be able to provide adequate services to the growing population. Despite urbanization, the level of services in our towns and cities are not adequate.
II. Impacts and Response
Urbanization has created enormous wealth and the need for infrastructure and services has also increased. Land prices increased dramatically over the years. Thee number of the homeless have also increased. Planned development became rather difficult. Cost recovery for most of the services is poor. It gave rise to slum dwellers and illegal settlements. It became more and more difficult for the informal sector to get integrated with modern systems.
With the development of crowded areas, the problems of pollution and solid waste management have increased. Carbon emissions and poor sanitation have caused health hazards.
Social polarization is another consequence. The poor work in an informal sector and live in slums with unhygienic environment. Transportation has become more and more difficult. The community form of development is slowly vanishing.
Urbanization brings institutional changes as well. With it, the ability to provide services and urban amenities needs to be enhanced. Most rural ways of doing things need to be integrated with the modern changes.
One of the major consequences of urbanization is the change in the mode of governance. In a rural setting, most of the urban services are locally managed without any support from the State.
The role of the government in Nepal slowly changed with urbanization. Half a century ago, the function of the State was to maintain law and order and to collect some revenue. With the start of the First Five Year Plan in 1956, the government began to launch development activities. It also started to provide infrastructure and services. Over the years, the role of the national government has changed markedly.
But it was not easy to cope with urbanization. The government turned out to be a bad manager in the context of service delivery. It became too costly and unaffordable for the people to receive the services provided by the government. Then the government looked for other partners of development. The involvement of the community, joint ventures and privatization and ultimately partnership formation became the changing mode of governance.
At the same time it tried to decentralize most of the development functions. While activities are shifted to local bodies, tools and resources remained with the centre. Only during the last few years, local government had a better access to different resources.
Despite an adequate institutional and legal back up also, Nepal has been successful to cope with urbanization. How has this been possible?
The integration of culture and rural ways of life with the modern changes are remarkable. Land development projects helped to integrate the new areas with the old cities. We have resisted the encroachment of outside influences. But we have not been able to emulate good urban governance.
Most of the changes thought to be good in the eighties have been realized. Some of these are:
· Local autonomy,
· Widening local economic base
· Decentralized government action
· Community involvement
· Private sector involvement
· Partnership
Nepal has so far, somehow, coped with the urbanization.
IV. Sustainability
However it may be difficult to sustain the changes in a positive direction. Without providing services, revenue collection cannot be continued. Most projects deemed successful in the nineties are no more replicable. The cost of providing services is increasing rapidly. The problem of solid waste disposal is accentuated. The rapid disappearance of rural areas from our towns and cities has made development almost impossible.
Only a couple of decades ago, most urban services are supposed to be provided free of cost. Today, the local revenue base has increased many folds. Democracy has brought lots of resources out. Decentralization was to a large extent successful and lots of resources are now available for development. These are encouraging but we failed to be accountable. Even when services are not provided, we collect revenue.
Urban financing is a major area of public policy. Only when the municipality will operate as a development management unit to produce and sell the urban services, it becomes self-financing. City marketing helps to attract industries that can pay for the services. It is the ability of the urban government to produce and sell services that the process becomes sustainable. In doing so, it is necessary to mobilize all the sectors in the pursuit of urban development. The way the size of the cities is increasing, it will not be possible to accommodate the increasing population and provide them with sufficient shelter, jobs, infrastructure and services.
With urbanization, more and more people come to live in cities. It is becoming more and more difficult to absorb the migrants to the cities. To provide them with jobs, shelter and services is a major challenge. Access to these to the poor and vulnerable becomes limited. Through urban governance, we should make our cities inclusive, which means that everyone in the city should have access to these.
In the past, it was possible to maintain rural areas even in cities. This has helped to make towns and cities more sustainable. It is necessary to make our cities green to ensure sustainable development.
V. Urban Governance
Whenever we talk of governance, the presence of a government is implicit. And when we think of it, we presume that its function is to rule. It is not possible to rule without a government. When people at large are happy and receive necessary services, we have good governance. At the same time, it also means the access of the people to the services without any discrepancy in terms of creed, sex or religion. It is just like stewardship. Those with power talk with those without power. Stewardship depends on the willingness to be accountable for results. Urban governance is a new area of development administration. The main objective is to serve the people. It recognizes those being served as partners of development.
The goal of urban governance is to create liveable spaces with good environment. It works for a balance between the urban and rural areas. The externalities created by investments in cities have to be evenly distributed. Poor people provide environmental services that go unnoticed. The rich build bigger houses and are more wasteful. Their ecological footprints are much more. They consume more but they do not pay.
Good governance at the settlement level is essential. City administration is taking after the evils of central government bureaucracy. It is more after financial returns than the sustainable use of resources.
Urban governance should be directed towards the creation of livable cities. Livability is the test of poverty alleviation. It should extend beyond the boundary of cities. It should harness the potentials of the associated region. It should create channels of communication among actors and stakeholders. People find ways to hold officials accountable. They learn to communicate and advocate change. Actors should be brought together for a consultative process. More transparency means better governance. It is complex in that it is collective governance. It is based on partnership. Development is not possible if we exclude any sector.
When a debate on decentralization takes place, the discussion generally centers on the issue of sharing power between the local authority and the national government. But there is no point in devolving power to the local level if power is going to be retained there only. The goal of decentralization is building sustainable partnerships. All should be empowered to act as partners in the total process of urban development. In the process, it is necessary to generate resources bound with every sector.
The ultimate goal of urban governance is to provide services to the people. It must be forward looking and build on partnerships to satisfy the needs of the ever-growing population. Being nearer to the people, it must function in a more transparent manner and be more accountable as compared to the national government. People will always be urging for the provision of services. Cost recovery becomes possible through such strategies.
The role of the national government should be to empower the urban government and make it operational. The partners of development should be brought about under a single umbrella and through consultative mechanisms; development should be initiated under a general consensus. Stakeholders forum will give rise to collective governance. This should be the form of urban governance.
Instead of controlling good governance depends on the ability to influence all the actors that their actions become compatible with the agreed goals. The quality of urban governance depends on the ability to produce and distribute urban services on a sustainable manner. This requires sustainable financing and city marketing approach. By increasing the quality of services, people can be made to pay for the services.
Local government is an elected authority with responsibility for a given area. It is a general organization formed to carry out many functions. It works beyond its statutory responsibilities covering the administration of different services. It is a political institution for the local choice and a development management unit for the provision of services. Its legitimacy depends on the nature of its representative characteristic. Its executive autonomy could be improved by
· Working on poverty alleviation programs
· Providing urban infrastructure, shelter and services’
· Managing urban environment
· Promoting the role of the private sector and civic societies.
· Building partnerships at local levels. (Joshi, 1999, p. 84)
It has already become necessary to examine how the power the local bodies already have is being used. More power may result in the abuse of power. Through actions and by serving the people the urban government should be made powerful. It is not the devolution of power from the centre. It is the strength derived from the bottom that is the test of good governance.
VI. Conclusion
It is a paradox that although Nepal talks much about good governance, the concept has not been brought to the action level. Good governance is possible only when people in need of services get them. Where do the people go for services and what they need? How can we satisfy the needs of the people locally and how can we serve the people at the local level are the key issues. When people get these services, good governance is ensured. Thus urban governance is the backbone of the concept of good governance. Strategies to ensure sustainable production and distribution at the local level will enhance the people’s willingness to pay for the services. The major thrust of decentralization is also to provide services at the local level.
The evolution of local government towards a strong local action is indeed a very good response that Nepal made to urbanization. But we should understand that a fair distribution of wealth created by it is possible only through good governance. The cost of urbanization and social impacts should be fairly shared and pricing of infrastructure and services should not exclude the weaker section. It is high time that we quickly move towards good governance in order to provide
· equal access to social goods and services,
· enhance local ability to satisfy needs over a longer period of time,
· entitlements for all to get integrated in the development process and
· access to environmental resources.
References
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Joshi, Jibgar. (1999). Housing and Urban Development in Nepal, Revised Edition, Kathmandu: Lajmina Joshi.
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___________. “Partnership in Urban Governance” in Sahabhagita, Vol. I, No I, May 1997.
NPC (National Planning Commission) (2002). The Tenth Plan in Nepali, Kathmandu: NPC.
Van Sant, J. (1996). “Governance as Stewardship” paper prepared for the Asian Ministerial Conference on Governance for Sustainable Growth and Equity, Lahore, Pakistan, 18 – 21 Nov. 1996.