Today's MYREPUBLICA has published a brief news about the district-wise governance ranking in Nepal. According to the news, the ranking was carried out based on three main criteria-- utilization of budget, transparency, and good governance. Bhaktapur District Development Committee (DDC), which was in the fifth position last year (2012), has topped the list of 74 districts this year, resulting to 30% raise in development budget to be coming to DDC this year (2013).
This is an incredible news to the Bhaktapur DDC and local people. Equally impressive to me is the continuation of the process of governance assessment and ranking of the districts. This could indeed be an important tool to increase governance-competition among the districts, exchange knowledge and good practices between the districts, reduce corruption, empower people, and ultimately help develop the districts. For this to happen, the rating methodology needs to be clear and unbiased; and the outcome (the report) needs to be widely marketed/disseminated so it receives better visibility by both the public and government agencies.
While I am yet to read the "Performance Report" before making any remarks on the methodology and results, the MYREPUBLICA news (see below) however is not very helpful to visualize the methods and processes employed preparing the report. For example, the news does not give us any information about who conducted the study and what are the specific indicators of criteria such as utilization of budget, transparency and good governance. Perhaps, a better marketing/dissemination of the report, as discussed above, could address issues like these.
Anyhow, a big congratulations to Bhaktapur DDC and all the Bhaktapureans! Moving forward, it would be very helpful if the DDC could write some good practice notes/stories on its governance experiences and disclose them in publicly available avenues (e.g. website) so that other districts could learn from Bhaktapur.
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Bhaktapur leads others in good governance
UPENDRA LAMICHHANE
BHAKTAPUR, July 18:
Bhaktapur has come ahead of other 74 districts in terms of utilization of budget, transparency and good governance. Bhaktapur District Development Committee scored 83 in performance assessment report released on Monday.
Interestingly, Dhankuta and Sindhupalchowk took second and third positions with 82 and 79 points respectively.
Local Development Officer of Bhaktapur Rajendra Kumar KC attributed the achievement to the entire DDC team for maintaining financial discipline and prioritizing development activities. This achievement has won Bhaktapur an additional 30 percent development budget.
“We performed our duty honestly. We did our best to implement the welfare scheme meant for the poor. Transparency and proper utilization of budget helped us leave other districts behind in performance assessment,” KC said.
Last year, Bhaktapur had secured fifth position in the assessment.
The work evaluation of the local bodies was prepared on the basis of financial management, financial resource mobilization, communication and transparency, monitoring and evaluation, among others.
“We carried out all development works in coordination with consumers committees. This turned out to be effective,” said KC. “We are happy that we could use the budget allocated to women and children quite effectively,” he said.
Meanwhile, Laxmidevi Humagain, monitoring and administrative officer of DDC, stated that the success has added greater responsibility on their shoulders. “The news has made us proud. But this has added more responsibility on our shoulders,” she said.
“We need to be very careful to maintain our success,” Humagain added.
