Determinants of Community Governance for Effective Basic Service Delivery in Nepal

Authors

  • Keshav K. Acharya University of New England

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3126/dsaj.v10i0.15885

Keywords:

community governance, community-based organisation, determinants, service delivery.

Abstract

Community governance is an approach of shift from governmentality to governance. This is more flexible approach extends beyond government, and the place of its agencies, to a greater sharing of power between the state, the market and civil society via new network and partnership structures. This paper analyses the determinants of community governance at the grassroots level in Nepal for the efficient delivery of basic services based on primary data sources. 110 locally constituted community based organisations were selected for an organisational survey. Additionally, three focus group discussions and 40 in-depth interviews were employed for information collection. A multiple linear regression model was used for data analysis, which revealed 12 variables such as Inclusive participation (X1), Empowerment of the people (X2), Transparency and accountability (X3) Enabling environment (X4), Practice of local democracy (X5), Service effectiveness (X6), Service integrity (X7), Social capital development (X8), Institution building (X9), Community mobilisation (X10) Planning, implementation, and monitoring (X11), Coordination, linkage, and partnership (X12) are significantly influencing governance practice. Results indicated a 14 percent variance between dependent and independent variables. This shows the overall practice of governance at the community level was malfunctioned, which can be attributed to a number of factors. First, many community-based organisations (CBOs) do not adopt governance mechanisms in their approach to development. Second, despite a crisis in governance, some CBOs have participated in the service delivery process. Third, this crisis has been a foremost obstacle in the working culture of CBOs. This analysis further explores the problem from the perspective of socio-economic structure, power politics and interests, institutional issues, and capacity and resource constraints.

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Author Biography

Keshav K. Acharya, University of New England

Acharya, Keshav K. Phd is a researcher of University of New England. His main interest areas are governance, service delivery, and community development. He holds MSc in Rural and Regional Development Planning from the Asian Institute of Technology Thailand. Dr. Acharya as a development practitioner worked in different positions and projects of UNDP and other development projects (Nepal, Thailand, and Australia) for more than 15 years. Additionally, he persuaded number of research and development projects in the area of capacity gap assessment of central and local government bodies, impact assessment of community development, and formulation of local government strategic plans and disaster plans. He has written some books, articles and research papers, which are published in peer-reviewed international journals and book chapters.

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Published

2016-10-04

How to Cite

Acharya, K. K. (2016). Determinants of Community Governance for Effective Basic Service Delivery in Nepal. Dhaulagiri Journal of Sociology and Anthropology, 10, 166–201. https://doi.org/10.3126/dsaj.v10i0.15885

Issue

Section

Articles