Local Service Delivery Insights Reveal Slow, But Sure Improvements Since 2015

Author: Shuvam Rizal

An air of positive energy surrounds Nepal at the time of this writing as the national local level elections of 2022 have concluded amidst much optimism and fanfare.

The recently conducted elections represented the second of their kind since the adoption of Nepal’s currently governing federal framework, which was established by the promulgation by the Constitution in 2015. While the first local elections held in 2017 were characterized by several regional and national roadblocks, both political and apolitical in nature, the 2022 elections concluded peacefully within the allotted timeframe. As its results slowly filtered through the vote counting and dissemination processes, a curious trend emerged. In only the second-ever local elections held in federal Nepal, there was a much higher number of victories secured by independent candidates across the country in several posts of key influence including mayor, deputy mayor, and ward chair. Barely seven years since federalism was introduced, and only five years since the first administrations of local leadership were elected, it appears that the citizens are confidently expressing their increased expectations and disappointment in the prior works of major political parties.

A Changing Landscape

As per the most recent count reflecting data from the Election Commission of Nepal, almost 400 individual independent candidates are reported to have been elected. Overall, a total of 24 political parties had participated in the countrywide polling proceedings. Interestingly, high-level positions in urban centers were found to be hotspots for independent candidates to be elected, including the mayor positions in Kathmandu Metropolitan City, Dharan Sub-Metropolitan City, Dhangadhi Sub-Metropolitan City and Janakpur Sub-Metropolitan City. Among the elected independent candidates, more than double were observed to be male. Even among mayor/deputy mayor tickets, it was observed that more female candidates, given mandates by constitutional provisions, contested for the deputy mayoral position. This finding reflects the still relevant need for increased gender equity in democratic processes in the country.

Nonetheless, with the country still filled with the rigor of election fever, now is perhaps an opportune time to review the performance of previous local administrations in the districts of Sunsari and Rupandehi with regards to one of the most important responsibilities of the local government tier: public service delivery. More specifically, this article reviews preliminary findings obtained from quantitative, index surveys conducted with influential individuals and organizations active in the areas of public health and education. An assortment of surveyed individuals includes members of the District Health/Education Government offices, health post professionals, school principals and teachers, ward chairs, female community health volunteer personnel, and individual citizens who are the direct beneficiaries of public services in the health and education sectors.

In both sectors of public health and public education, the administration, management, and direction of service portals such as local health posts and primary/secondary schools falls within the jurisdiction of the local governments. Thus, following the 2017 elections that established the first elected local administration bodies across the countries, a thorough review of education and health outcomes can be considered as the first endline assessments of local public service delivery structures since the establishment of the federal governance framework.

Quantitative Findings

The table shown alongside summarizes findings from scaled index surveys conducted to reflect four distinct service dimensions in the health sector. All scores were collected as subjective quantifications on a scale of 1-5 and averaged across data from both Sunsari and Rupandehi.

As we can see on the table, all four of the observed service dimensions (namely efficiency, accessibility, inclusivity, and participation levels) fall just above the hypothetical average score of 2.50. Assessments of the inclusivity level in local public health services achieved the highest relative score of 2.92, which is a direct reflection of improved constitutional and legal provisions introduced by the federalism in the local landscape. On the other hand, the lowest score of 2.55 was achieved by the accessibility dimension, which not only reflects the perceived public difficulty in understanding and accessing local services, but also warrants further research on the role played by geographical differences between health posts and living settlements.

In sharp contrast, the average scores obtained from the same survey questions administered to reflect the status of the public education sector paints a much more optimistic picture, as shown in the table alongside. All four dimensions studied by the research rank well above the hypothetical three-fifths mark of 3.00, with three even rounding off closer to a score of 4.00 on a scale of 1-5.

The lowest score was achieved by the efficiency dimension. Further probing through qualitative analysis methods revealed several reasons why education is considered inefficient. The most cited reasons included mishandling of educational disruptions triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic, the impact of the growing digital divide in educational opportunities, persistence of social perceptions preferring private education to public education, and lack of uniformity in education sector planning and administering processes across local government units. Nonetheless, almost all participants surveyed found that the status of public education had improved substantially since the introduction of federalism. The remaining three lens of analysis, namely accessibility, inclusivity, and participation levels, all scored above 3.65, which signals strong improvements in local education administration since the 2017 elections.

Optimistic Projections in Qualitative Findings

The quantitative findings highlighted above are useful to gauge the perceived progress, challenges, and improvement opportunities observed in local governments’ administration of public service delivery activities. However, they fail to tell the full story of the situation on the ground due to the restrictive nature of the numeric surveys.

Almost every single participant interviewed as part of the research investigation reported that the ground-level public service delivery mechanisms have seen vast improvements and substantial growth since the 2015 constitution promulgation and 2017 local elections. Further, many local influential voices were always happy to share that, while political participation can still be very low in some sectors, there has been an overall explosion in democratic participation across the board when compared to pre-2015 levels. Anecdotal evidence and media monitoring aggregations further show that the federal framework has brought a much needed boost to public services by local government units across the country.

By its very design, any democratic governance system is only as good as its participatory mechanisms – including how accessible politics is to the average citizen and how inclusive participation processes are. Nepal’s longstanding issues such as chronic poverty, political instability, structural shortcomings, centralized development, and geographical difficulties are still reflected in research findings gauging the strength and efficiency of its government. The introduction of federalism, however, can be believed to be a positive step towards a progressive, fair, just, and peaceful future for the country.

The graphics, views and opinions expressed in the piece above are solely those of the original author(s) and contributor(s). They do not necessarily represent the views of Centre for Social Change.