SUBMITTED TO

CARE NepalCountry OfficeKrishna Galli, Kathmandu, Nepal

Validation Report: Governance Programming Framework (GPF)

SUBMITTED BY - Bishwa N. PaudyalConsultant

GPO Box: 12207Kathmandu, Nepal

18th March 2011

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Validation Report: Governance Programming Framework (GPF)

This Validation Report came out of review of CARE Nepals’ several project documents, field study, GPF mapping exercise and validation workshop. Data from the different sources have been gathered and analysed to draw the synthesis. A one day validation workshop was also organized with staffs of Care Nepal, its partners and project staffs to discuss on GPF, get reflection and feedback on its conceptual framework, domains and sub-domains for improving programme design and plan, contextually appropriate programming and improve impact assessment by laying the basis for common governance indicators and methods.

To facilitate thinking around these core purposes, please structure your report as follows1.

The report should address, as concisely as possible, the following questions and should use the following headings to structure the report. You may insert further sub-headings if this helps the report to be more readable. If you have supplementary information that is relevant, please provide that as a clearly marked annex.

We are not expecting an in-depth description of all the governance work that you do in this section (the analysis of the governance work against the GPF will be addressed in section 2). Instead this section is meant to set the context and give a sense of how the CO is approaching governance work and a sense of the type of work that is implemented.

Section 1: Setting the context and description of Work on Governance – Maximum 3 Pages

After the people’s revolution 2006, Government of Nepal (GoN) is committed to bring tangible changes in the governance and community development process. GoN aims to improve the living standards of the people through community led development, efficient service delivery, good governance, based on a democratic value system and rights-based approach and inclusive development efforts that are based on the fundamental principle of federal, inclusive and participatory development. As an endeavour of empowerment of citizens and communities for active engagement with local governments and strengthening downward accountability the local government bodies are enriched with resources. GoN annually provides US$ 260.8 million to local bodies ((DDCs, Municipalities and VDCs) as a Block Grant. Additionally, the donors commitment is more than US$161.5 million. Additionally, there are NGO programmes running separately which almost equals to the amount as donors’ commitment at national level. Similarly, in November 2006, the Government of Nepal decided to roll out the performance based grant system in all 75 districts with the recommendation of the Local Body Fiscal Commission (LBFC), as per the budget speech of FY 2006/07. The Local Governance and Community Development Programme (LGCDP) has implemented performance based grant system to provide additional grant to DDCs from the fiscal year 2008/2009 and for VDCs and municipalities from the FY 2009/10.

There has been a vacuum of local elected representatives in Nepal since July 2002, new constitution has not been formulated within the stipulated deadline mandated by the citizens, reintegration of Maoist combatants in security forces have met obstructions thereby faltering the historic peace process, whereas, enmity among political parties have widened in recent days. Further, the central government’s annual plan reflected in “Red Book” is still within the bureaucratic “red-tape” and beyond the access of common people. The situation of district and village development plans has not been as participatory, responsive and accessible for the people as fantasized by the local government authorities and supporting projects. There has been less or no efforts ever to educate, empower and inform the citizens about the policies, plans, accountability structure, programmes and budgetary provisions of the public authorities. Access to information, citizen’s participation and good governance are core elements of democracy. Citizens are demanding accountable and transparent governance system including voice in decision making processes. Many studies show that over the past 15 years, people have seen democratic changes

1 The report should address, as concisely as possible, the following questions and should use the following headings to structure the report. You may insert further sub-headings if this helps the report to be more readable. If you have supplementary information that is relevant, please provide that as a clearly marked annex.

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but never witnessed backslide in accountability and service delivery. Even after this democratic revolution the situation of governance especially at the local level has been worsening day by day. Without an enabling environment to promote people’s participation at the grassroots level and creating local self-reliant institutional mechanisms to provide services to the people, decentralization and governance process cannot be sustained.

Governance component in CARE projects:CARE Nepal has been working in the field of governance since last ten years as “bad governance” has been identified as an underlying cause of poverty. There has been growing support for governance-related programming and the governance component has been built-in at different levels of the programmes, projects and organisation as a major component of CARE Nepal. However, there was a lack of common understanding of governance concepts and consistency in its modalities and strategies for addressing governance issues. The Governance Programming Framework (GPF) has been envisioned as a guiding document to address this gap. The following project documents clearly indicate the well reflection and incorporation of governance components as a major area of programme intervention.

Churia Livelihood Improvement (CHULI) project has set its Development Objective to contribute towards improving livelihood security of the poor, vulnerable and socially excluded women, men, girls and boys in Sarlahi, Mahottari and Dhanusa districts at household, group, community, and district levels. The project document says that CHULI will address the issue of discrimination and inequality through components like Empowerment of Poor, Vulnerable and Socially Excluded Women and Men, and Local Participatory Democracy and Good Governance. Local Bodies like District Development Committees and Village Development Committees and major political parties are stated as secondary target groups.

Likewise, Women empowerment for transformation in the Churia area SAKCHAM II sets its goal as the women affected by conflict are enabled to exercise women’s human rights by addressing agency, structural and relational aspects of their empowerment. The direct target population of the project has been identified as women and girls from lowest strata of Dalit, endangered & highly marginalized Janajatis, poor, single women, migrant women workers, wives of migrant men, those living in poverty pockets such as disaster prone areas excluded from development process and opportunities with poor access to basic services and resources.

Empowering Women in the Churia to Improve Their Livelihoods: SHAKTI project’s overall objective is to contribute to the improved livelihood of the poor, vulnerable and socially excluded women in Churia. In this project, a total of 7500 poor vulnerable socially excluded women and their families are identified as target population.

COMMUNITY SUPPORT PROGRAMME (CSP) II has incorporated the component of local governance as an integral part. The overall goal of Community Support Programme (CSP) phase II is to reduce poverty and promote social inclusion and apply public auditing; community mobilisation; skills building and use of local resources; inclusive project delivery; capacity building of district development and village development committees; joint monitoring and do-no-harm as approaches to implement the programme. The project envisions that collaboration and partnership with government line agencies and other relevant stakeholders will lead to improved accountability of the state and civil society organisations towards the poor and excluded in general and women in particular.

Similarly, CARE Nepal’s Women Empowerment Programme framework envisions for the Women's Engagement in Political Processes and Decision-making by strengthening women leaders’ capacity with negotiation and advocacy skills to overcome social, cultural and political barriers and enable women to demand good governance and accountability from local, national to international actors.

Concepts & Strategy

Do you have country office definitions of governance concepts?

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There is no separate definition of governance concepts of CARE Nepal. As described in the Project document of Governance Programming Initiative (GARI), which is also an official position paper of CARE Nepal on governance and its framework, the governance is defined as “the sum of the many ways individuals and institutions, public and private, exercise power in the management of public affairs”. There was also the learning workshop on Governance that was conducted in April 2010 which started the process of defining a common position of CARE Nepal’s work on governance. This initiative was able to capture a much broader learning dimension that came from other project initiatives to generate knowledge on governance, articulating and testing implicit theories and assumptions about how change happens in governance work. During the workshop space was created to explore governance concepts, and CARE Nepal’s strategies and the hypotheses and assumptions underpinning these practices2. Do you have a governance strategy? Does it include a TOC, hypothesis, assumption,

breakthroughs etc?

CARE Nepal does not have a separate strategy on governance. However the overall understanding in the organization around governance is to empower the right holders and make duty bearers accountable.

Description of work What type of governance work do you do? Do you have a specific governance

programme or project, or do you see governance as a theme that cross-cuts different programmes? Do you approach governance as a UCP?3

Currently there is no specific project of CARE Nepal in the specific area of governance. SAGUN project was the initiative on governance with the specific objectives of strengthening internal governance in terms of transparency, accountability, participation, inclusion, and equity in the functioning of target FUGs and other relevant stakeholders at the local level. With the phasing out of the SAGUN project, there are no other specific projects only focusing on governance issues.

Do you have dedicated governance staff? If not, what are your staff capacities to work on governance?

As governance is a cross cutting theme across CARE Nepal’s programmes, all managers and senior managers are expected to work on the governance theme. However, Policy Advocacy and Impact Coordinator, Social Analysis Coordinator, Gender and Social Inclusion Coordinator are dedicating more attention to governance work.

Domains and Sub Domains 4

Can you briefly describe whether and how you are working in each of the three domains and related Sub Domains?

The following description on 3 domains provides consolidated picture of CARE Nepal’s current 8 project inputs on their governance interventions and achievements. These projects are CHULI, SAKCHAM II, CSP-II, CRADLE, CHUNAUTI, SHAKTI, CA INITIATIVE, WYPSP.

2 Governance Learning Initiative Inception Workshop Report, CARE Nepal, 27th-28th April 2010

3 We are not expecting an in-depth description of all the governance work that you do in this section (the analysis of the governance work against the GPF will be addressed in section 2). Instead this section is meant to set the context and give a sense of how the CO is approaching governance work and a sense of the type of work that is implemented. 4 We are not expecting an in depth description of all your governance portfolio. In order to keep this task manageable and answer to these more detailed questions, pls feel free to choose only one or two relevant governance programmes.

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Empowered citizens:

There is a high degree of consistency in how CARE Nepal approaches its governance work, with some additional dimensions coming from a number of projects. This approach generally fits within the sub-domains of empowered citizens and also expanded spaces for negotiation but there is less consistency in engagement in domain 2 on effective and accountable public authorities.

The common theme for this work on empowered citizens is the community-led approach starting from the UCPA process and formation of the PEC centres, towards collective actions and campaigns for rights by these groups. This approach is then adapted by different projects to meet their particular aims, for example in CHULI there is a focus on natural resource management while in SAKCHAM there is a focus on peace building. It is through raising awareness of rights that leads to collective actions for access to resources and realising rights. There are some mechanisms in different projects to enable social accountability, such as scorecards and monitoring service provision through participation in School Management Committees.

There is also interesting work done to bridge the local experience of PECs and their demands vertically to issue based groups such as district land rights forums and women’s rights forums and also to link this even further to the national policy space through SAKSHAM and CA Initiative. These vertical linkages are very important features of these projects’ work. Further there are activities to strengthen the horizontal linkages of PECs to each other within VDCs and beyond to the district level. This can be seen as a further form of collective action and collective agencies. However it is harder to locate the vertical linkages of domains and sub-domains. It relates to collective action but is at a higher level than usually connoted by the sub-domain “collective action”. It also relates to issues of representation as who has the legitimacy to represent the issues of these PECs and how are they selected, particularly when they make linkages to outside organisations such as the women’s rights forums and the land rights forums, which is also related to the sub-domain of internal accountability in terms of how PECs, land rights forums, and women’s rights forums make decisions and report back on those decisions to their members or PEC partners.

Finally internal accountability and representation sub-domains relate to work on the representativeness of CFUGs. Here it becomes obvious as with the discussion on achievements in GARI workshop that CFUGs fit in both the domain of “empowered citizens” and in the domain 2 “effective and accountable public authorities”.

Accountable and effective public authorities

Across many of the projects that adopt this community-led approach, there is a tendency to see public authorities’ accountability and responsiveness linked to the voice, participation and collective demands of PVSE citizens. There are some activities in this area, though rarely linked with the public authorities. Most of these activities relate to the functions and performance of CFUGs, building their knowledge on their roles and responsibilities and particularly around transparency and accountability to their members, and to ensure that their decisions are responsive to the interests of marginalised people within their groups. There has also been some work by CHULI to engage with VDCs to support them in their planning processes, building their responsiveness and accountability.

Two projects that have engaged with public authorities (beyond CFUGs) are the Constituent Assembly Initiative and the Cradle. In both these projects there have been specific attempts to engage public authorities and to build their capacities to plan, engage citizens effectively, to be responsive and accountable to citizens, and to build their technical capacities to implement pro-poor policies and services. Cradle fits most comfortably into the sub-domain on “provision of services”, whereas the CA Initiative engages at the ultimate level of national political processes through the drafting of the Constitution and legislation such as on domestic violence. This is not adequately covered by “provision of services” as this is about the capacities to implement policies that are already defined, however the CA Initiative is about the definition/articulation of transformative policies.

Expanded spaces for negotiation

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There has been some work in all four sub-domains. CARE Nepal’s strategy is to create popular spaces through PECs and to enable more informal linkages to VDCs, service providers and other power-holders. There are also attempts to increase the inclusion of PVSEs in committees for service provision and in the VDC planning processes. This is a clear linkage to the second domain of accountable and effective public authorities.

What type of work do you implement? – I have removed as this question is answered in detail in the passage I wrote above on the three domains and then also in the detailed mapping.

How are you working (directly, through partners etc)?

CARE-Nepal primarily works with local partners (national and local NGOs, federations, networks, etc.). But there are some special instances when it has directly worked with local user groups in coordination with district and VDC level authorities.

o What type of partners are you working with? At what level (local, regional, national etc)?

CARE Nepal has national and cluster level NGO partners to implement its project. It has also been working with government as well as non-government organizations at national, sub-national and local level. Apart from NGOs, CARE-Nepal also works with national federations and networks which are dedicated to certain themes or issues. It has also joined alliances with various INGOs and bilateral donors working on national initiatives – land rights, freed Haliyas, GBV etc.

o What public authorities and other power holders you are working with? What type of work do you do? In what type of spaces (invited, popular etc)? What is CARE’s role?

CARE Nepal has been working with public authorities like national and local government agencies, government line agencies and non-government organizations (NGOs) registered under the NGO act. It is also working with Community Forest User Groups (CFUGs) and Para Legal Committees at local level. The other groups that CARE works with is the power holders like political leaders, traditional healers, social leaders and activists, solidarity activists, women leaders and human rights activists. It maintains formal and informal partnership at multiple levels: with local NGOs, government agencies, communities, civil society groups, federations, networks and the private sector. CARE Nepal is currently working in partnership with over 80 local NGOs, 10 different networks and approximately 1,000 community based organizations.

Section 2: Thinking towards impact – Maximum 3 PagesSince this exercise could be intended also as the outset of a possible impact inquiry, we are also interested in looking at the value of the framework in understanding impact.

External consultation with beneficiaries and other stakeholders:

Basing our reflection on our impact groups and stakeholders’ understanding of good governance – a deductive process

Do you have any information on how your impact groups/stakeholders would define characteristics of good governance from their perspective?

During FGD, Impact Groups/stakeholders defined characteristics of good governance from their own perspectives. They have defined good governance as a self governance and community governance

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process. For them good governance is also a “changed mind set of leaders, bureaucrats and other power holders”.

In addition, the impact group/stakeholders defined governance as a process in which people from the marginalized section of the society have access to participation and decision making process with adequate information. Similarly, their perception on characteristics of good governance include: transparent public authority, participation of Dalit, poor, women in development process, inclusive development, effective service delivery, non-corruption, rule of law and non-partial and non-discriminatory. Additionally, the other characteristics of good governance are: inclusion of Janajati, women and poors in VDC decision making process; ensure women’s participation; promotion of participatory development; bottom up planning, livelihood support and income generation support.

In response to the three top priorities for good governance, participatory development was described to be of highest priority by most of the participants of FGD followed by access to information and accountable service provider/public authority. For most of the respondents of FGD, good governance meant “scholarship for our children, employment, electricity and water supply for us”. Similarly, “non-political influence and good security situation” is major characteristics for the officials of local bodies. Likewise, for civil society representatives “transparent, cooperative and accountable government authority is precondition for good governance”

The following field findings provide the glimpse of characteristics identified from the impact groups and stakeholders’ understanding in each domain:

Empowered Citizens: Transparency, Meaningful Participation of Dalit, women and poor, Non-partial and non discriminatory; Access to information; Accountability; Responsible citizens; Political ownership/will; Access to public resources;

Accountable and Effective Public Authorities and Other Power Holders: Inclusive, participatory governance and development; Transparency; Inclusion of PVSE in decision making; Non-partial and non-discriminatory; Accountability; Elected representatives; No political pressure; Political ownership

Expanded Spaces for Negotiation: Transparency, Effective and quality service provision (resource distribution); Non-corruption, Rule of law; No- political pressure; Political ownership; Non-partial and non-discrimination; Accessibility; Access to information; Pro-poor focus; Accountability; Coordination and linkage; Commitment to decentralization; Elected representatives.

The characteristics identified by the impact group/stakeholder were verified and regrouped by the participants of the validation workshop as follows:

Empowered Citizens: Meaningful Participation of Dalit, women and poor, Non-partial and non discriminatory, Access to information, Responsible citizens, Access to public resources

Accountable and Effective Public Authorities and Other Power Holders: Inclusive, participatory governance and development, Inclusion of PVSE in decision making, Accountability, No political pressure, Political ownership

Expanded Spaces for Negotiation: Transparency, Effective and quality service provision (resource distribution), Rule of law, Pro-poor focus, Commitment to decentralization

What do your impact groups/stakeholders think are CARE’s main achievements to date with regards to the characteristics of governance identified by them? And what are the major social changes that they would like to see accomplished?

o This can be done through a follow up focus group exercise, preferably involving members of the impact population and members of different stakeholders. Alternatively they could be consulted separately (eg, if their views on characteristics are sought in a focus group, a second stage of the focus group could discuss achievements).

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As described in focus group exercise of the impact population and members of different stakeholders the major achievements of CARE Nepal are:

1. Empowered Citizens: Socio-economic and political status of women and PVSE has improved including questioning capacity

on power structure/dynamics. Citizen’s awareness on rights increased significantly - Dalit and peasants organized for their rights “We are empowered enough to go to the VDC and school for our rights, we locked up it because it did

not heard us” Dalits and women who were inside of their house now converted into activists. Women, Dalit and poors started demonstration for their rights and started making need-based work-

plan. They started submitting it to VDC for action and implementation. Watchdog and whistle blowers promoted for citizen rights i.e. land, women, Dalit and peasants’ rights

(This is not a CARE’s single effort but it has a contribution on raising this issue and empowering people).

Practiced public audit in CARE’s activities. Women’s leadership in key position increased (Still the representation in key positions is very low) Dalits are benefitted from focused programmes like scholarship quota Awareness increased in the area of child marriage, dowry and VAW 3 People Based Organizations started fighting for their rights (This is not a CARE’s single effort but it

has a contribution on raising this issue and empowering people). Impact group’s negotiations capacity and skills enhanced. Service seeking from local service providers (VDC + HP) increased, as a result a VDC opened its

branch office (CHULI) Awareness increased on social security fund, VDC budget, provision of free drug and school

scholarship Internal accountability in groups increased. Local partner’s capacity on good governance enhanced at both internal governance and capacity to

influence government agencies Started punishing the culprit of VAW e.g. Group punished NRs 5000 to culprit (Gardi, Chitawan)

2. Accountable and Effective Public Authorities and Other Power Holders: People started getting better services from VDC and HP. Cases on VAW are linked to paralegal committees at local level Increased trend of getting marriage/birth registration and citizenship (by women). “We locked up the temple because the priest did not give entry to worship” (women groups from Dalit

community) Girls’ enrolment in school increased (This is a cumulative result of CARE and DEO) CARE in association with other agencies raised the issues of Churiya which is recognized as national

agenda (NRs 10 million provided to Dhanusha by government) Expenditure of VDC and CFUGs changed from infrastructure to social development. VDC started

allocating budget for the poor / women / DAG. 2 VDCs prepared 3 years periodic plan (CHULI) CARE partners’ annual plan reflected in District Development Plan (Chitawan).

3. Expanded spaces for negotiation: Increased daily wages of agriculture laborers at significant level (NRs 50 – 150) (This is not a CARE’s

single effort but it has a contribution on raising this issue and empowering people). “We are working for our land right, the land we are cultivating since 30 years is not registered yet. Now,

we are aligned with land right forum to fight for our right”

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VDCs gradually practicing transparent planning/budgeting process and started inviting poor / women / DAG (but the number is still not significant).

Linkage developed with land rights forum /solidarity groups at district and national level. Community groups have their own community houses.

Internal reflection done by CARE Staff:

How do these characteristics compare against the domains and sub-domains in the Governance Programming Framework?

During the validation workshop participants prioritised the list of characteristics that the field study had produced through a voting procedure and the list of characteristics came up within each domain as follows (the # in bracket denotes vote for priority):

. Empowered Citizens: Meaningful Participation of Dalit, women and poor (26), Non-partial and non

discriminatory (16), Access to information (24), Responsible citizens (25), Access to public resources (26)

Expanded Spaces for Negotiation: Transparency (27), Effective and quality service provision (resource distribution) (15), Rule of law (22), Pro-poor focus (18), Commitment to decentralization (19)

Accountable and Effective Public Authorities and Other Power Holders: Inclusive, participatory governance and development (26), Inclusion of PVSE in decision making (27), Accountability (17), No political pressure (15), Political ownership (24)

How would you know that you have achieved changes linked to these characteristics? What change would you like to see?

During the GPF Validation Workshop participants extracted the following achievements based on the abovementioned characteristics:

Facilitated to flow the information on public services available at local level and what is their rights Helped to empower PVSE groups Public authorities like VDCs started becoming sensitive to the PVSE PVSE able to get knowledge on public resources and their rights VDCs started to incorporate women rights forums within its regular planning system including

council (CHULI) Information disseminated by GARI helped to inform people about citizen rights and public

authorities’’ responsibility in different areas The discourse on civic rights focusing on PVSE and public authority started at group and

community level PVSE able to analyze the cause of poverty, vulnerability and exclusion CARE and its partners transparency increased through public audit Realization of need of assessment of achievement and impact of the project intervention, able to

analyze the success and failure Able to upscale the GARI lessons to other groups and projects Able to realize the need of addressing the issues raised by PVSE to public authorities Able to establish the rights of the PVSE to the resources.

During the validation workshop participants expressed their views to see the following changes in the following domains and sub-domains:

Domains/Sub-domains Desired Changes Empowered CitizensMeaningful Participation of Dalit, Proportionate participation of PVSE and other marginalized

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women and poor groups in all sector of society PVSE being able to influence the decision making process in

favour of their agenda Establishment of democratic values within the group

Access to public resources Access of PVSE in nearby natural, religious and cultural resources increased

PVSE being able to get resources and services from local government bodies without any hassles

Responsible citizens PVSE being able to seek the available public resources and facilities and blow the whistle if necessary

PVSE being able to use local resources in participatory and equitable manner

Access to information PVSE being able to get information on available services, agencies and procedure to get services

Non-partial and non discriminatory

Development endeavour and decision making process to be more equitable and participatory

Inclusive social structure High priority to PVSE needs and projects

Accountable and Effective Public Authorities and Other Power HoldersInclusion of PVSE in decision making

PVSEs’ engagement in structures from community to national level increased that enable them to influence the decisions

Awareness raised on both rights and responsibility of the citizens

Development of self confidence in PVSEInclusive, participatory governance and development

Participatory and inclusive use of available resources and services with-out any discrimination

Political ownership Able to highlight the issues and agendas of PVSE and commitment to implement

Able to work as a role model and social change agentAccountability More accountable public authorities with their services

More aware right holders with their rights and service provisions Cordial relation built between service providers and receivers

No political pressure No discrimination based on the political interest and thoughts No intention of fulfilment of political interest from the public

resourcesExpanded Spaces for NegotiationTransparency Public charter (Badapatra) should be kept in public place for

information Periodic publication (at least six monthly) disclosing of

government budget, program and progress Public hearing, public audit and social audit (annual) Access of all in local government general assembly Access of information / availability of information on demand

Rule of law People oriented services and facilities in place and functional/ implement

Committed to provide service by duty bearers Application of human rights principles Ensure public safety and security and end impunity Gender responsiveness laws and policies Punishment to local authorities for over ruling policies

Commitment for decentralization Effective implementation of Local Self Governance Act Decentralized power and authority at all level

Pro-poor focus Engagement/ participation of PVSE men and women in local planning, implementation and monitoring and evaluation

Focus on pro-poor planning and implementation Quality service delivery and utilization as per the requirement of

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community people (men and women) Access and control of PVSE over resources Pro poor (gender responsive) focused laws and policies

formulation with participation of women in the decision making. Also, ensuring its effective implementation

Effective and quality service provision and resource distribution

Equitable distribution of resources/ services Allocation of budget in favours of livelihood of PVSE

What indicators would you use for measuring change in each characteristic and domain/sub domain?

What indicators are you already using to assess if these changes in their respective domains are happening or not?

Optional section: depending on how much information and time you have, you may wish to explore these further questions below, through reviewing and reflecting on your own experience and already available evaluations, reports and other relevant information.

Section 4: Analysis of Governance Work using the Framework / Evaluation of the appropriateness and usefulness of the GPF – Maximum 4 Pages

The following questions intend to analyse the value of the GPF for improving your programme design and for planning contextually appropriate programming.

In light of the above analysis, please provide answers to the following questions.

Do you agree with CARE’s definition of governance and good governance? Why?

Governance refers to the institutions, processes and traditions which define how power is exercised, how decisions are made and how the views of the citizens are taken into account. Quality of cooperation and decision making processes between government, social groups and stakeholders concerning matters of public interest determine the degree of good governance.

CARE Nepal across its project portfolio has experience in the areas of good governance; however it has not yet aggregated it to a more strategic or integrated approach to governance in its programmes. CARE Nepal has been experimenting with different approaches and modalities of engaging in political processes from the local level to the national level, implicitly developing theories of change for its governance work that are as yet unarticulated and untested. As there is no separate definition and governance programming framework and seeking for standard tool for governance programming this tested and standardised tool helps CARE for mainstreaming governance as a cross cutting tool.

As CARE Nepal has been practicing Governance Action Research Initiative (GARI) as a learning initiative, it is understood that CARE Nepal has a good understanding of governance and good governance framework of CARE International (CI) and adapted it as CARE Nepal’s (CN) governance framework. Due to its previous focussed intervention in 4 pillars of good governance, all the programme staffs of CN are primarily guided with this concept i.e. participation, transparency, accountability and predictability. This concept of governance was used by CARE Nepal in its Strengthened Actions for Governance in Utilization of Natural Resources (SAGUN) Project. However, the definition and scale of intervention varies from programme to programme and projects to projects.

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Do the three domains and sub-domains accurately represent the main areas of governance work ? If so, why? If not, why not?

All the domains and sub-domains accurately represent the main areas of governance work. But the present framework is only limited upto the sub-domain level. This broad conceptual framework should go beyond this level to make it understandable to the staffs, authorities, power holders and general public at different level. The detail contents for both the empowerment and accountability structure should be analysed and used at different level. The current use of PVSE tool is not enough to assess the governance process. Some sub-domains could be added as per the need of the programmes/projects. CARE Nepal’s existing interventions have not covered all sub-domains.

During the validation process, the group presentation on the mapping exercise expressed their concurrence with the domains and sub-domains and theory of change and hypotheses as being relevant. However, the group reflected on placing the issues such as vertical and horizontal linkages, and also how to deal with work on policies and influencing policies.

The groups reflected that GPF has helped them to see their projects using the domains and sub-domains. However, they feel that the existing modality focuses more on the domain of “empowered citizens” with limited intervention on the duty-bearers to enhance their capacity or to promote transparency, responsiveness and accountability.

There was also an interesting set of feedback on the framework that it is not gender sensitive. If gender is not incorporated in the framework there is a risk of the framework being neutral and may allow powerful actors to influence governance processes. This is particularly relevant with regards to women’s participation in decision making processes. The level of women’s participation is determined through their intra-household relations, and how society treats them and encourages or does not encourage their participation. The traditional role concept of women within the society also creates barriers to participation, accessibility of services such as maternal health services.

There was an interesting discussion on the fact that certain institutions can fall into both “empowered citizens” domain and also the “public authorities” domain depending on the behaviours they demonstrate – such as CFUGs – and that this flexibility needs to be highlighted.

The participants also suggested that a new sub-domain under “expanded spaces” called “Policy advocacy” should be created to capture CARE’s work of advocacy that it does either through network with others or alone for pro-poor and transformative policies. There was a feeling that there is not enough of CARE’s work reflected in the domains as CARE also works in coalitions to influence changes, and it also works with duty-bearers at different levels to influence their behaviours.

The final group discussion reflected on the “Like” and “Dislike” options on the GPF. The concept of the pyramid and inter-linkages and the analysis on the framework was liked by the participants though they would like to change the diagram to reflect reality that all areas are not equal.

Further discussion highlighted the need to reflect on peace and development in the context of good governance as the link between peace and governance are very important in the context of Nepal and it needs to be more clearly articulated – beyond the sub-domain that is already there. These inter-linkages need to be unpacked more.

What are the challenges that you are facing, and what are the emerging lessons learned?

Lack of facilitation for planning and coordinating process by which decisions are made for the sustainable use of available resources is a major challenge. Similarly, weak law enforcement,

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absence of elected representative at local bodies, existence of fragmented policies, lack and inadequacy of information, absence of need based participatory planning, participation of weak segment of society in the overall planning cycle are some other challenges. During the course of review the following challenges and gaps have been stated by different groups:

1. Empowered Citizens

• Knowledge on citizen rights increased significantly. But it is limited within the impact population. It is challenging for scale out.

• The use of UCPA tools is effective for poverty and socio-structural analysis. This only is not adequate for social empowerment and transformation.

• As GPF is quite simplified and understandable for programmatic point of view, different indicators and variables at sub-domain level would be useful to make it handy and user friendly.

• Except projects’ regular monitoring no other surveillance tools like citizen report card, Participatory MCPM, good governance index etc. has been practiced to monitor the situation of plans, budget and service delivery pattern.

• Wide gap between understanding of governance issues and accountability framework of service providers at project level.

• Very low understanding on laws, bylaws, guidelines and procedures of service provisions including DDC/VDC grant expenditure guideline, participatory planning process, timeline of planning process, LSGA, Gender Policy, Interim Constitution/Plan etc.

2. Accountable and Effective Public Authorities and Other Power Holders:

• Communities/groups are getting services from local level institutions but not linked with other agencies like DDC, Line agencies and NGOs.

• Promoting transparency and accountability could be CARE’s major area of intervention as it has very strong grassroot network.

• As the GPF is targeted to the government, public sector and power holder’s accountability it is necessary to align CAREs’ project intervention in these areas.

• Public audit has been practiced as social accountability tool by different government and non-government organizations but is not widely practices despite the policy provision.

• Cumulative effects from other programme’s interventions are also captured as particular project’s output that must be reflected in systems like HMIS and EMIS.

• Political parties, DDC, VDCs, Line agencies and NGOs are not interlinked and coordinated adequately which is necessary for good governance promotion.

• CARE has no common understanding of governance concepts among its staffs, partners, target groups and impact population. It has to standardize a specific definition of governance and good governance for its internal and external use.

3. Expanded spaces for negotiation

• There is significant role of CARE in governance sector. Facilitation of defunct participatory planning and monitoring process with sector-wide approach could be the strategic intervention.

• Facilitation and technical support for Process monitoring, gender/PVSE sensitive planning and policy analysis is lacking that provides spaces for all stakeholders and is essential part of advocacy and empowerment.

• Tools for UCPA is able to raise a lot of awareness. It is not standardized to address the other issues like livelihoods and income generations.

• Still there is a wide gap between representation and holding of key positions. Resourceful positions are still out of their access, e.g. local peace committee, all party mechanism of VDC and DDC etc.

Is there any area of your work missing from the framework that is relevant for you and you would like to include? Why should it be included?

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In order to make duty bearers more accountable, it is imperative to engage with them: enhancing their capacity; gap identification and providing feedback etc could be some of the additional interventions. Project at an individual level are engaged with duty bearers, but there is limited understanding at the organizational level (strategy formulation) in engaging with duty bearers systematically. Rights holders are also duty bearers, so it is essential to go to the family unit level and community at large and it should not be limited to groups (WRF, WAF, PPC). It is also discussed that SATH & POSS of the CRADLE are best practices and examples of working with public authority that should not be missed as CARE’s intervention to promote accountable public authority.

The policy formulation and advocacy for transformative policy would more fit in the domain “accountable and effective public authorities” under sub domain 2.4.

Vertical and horizontal linkages of citizens groups – fits under Domain 1, and between sub-Domain 1.2 and 1.3

CFUGs in one hand is a CSO, as it is a citizens organization. But it depends fully on state resource and law, making state resources a common resource.

Based on the discussion and conclusion of validation workshop, CARE Nepal has unanimously agreed with the conclusion presented in the workshop that despite of its tremendous focus to the citizen empowerment domain, there has been very little effort in the area of supporting public authorities to enhance accountability. Though horizontal linkages have been developed due to CARE’s intervention, still there is weak vertical linkage. Yet some of the group member reminded of CARE’s intervention like CA Initiatives and SAKCHAM for promoting vertical linkage as well.

To further strengthen the vertical linkage and upstream work of CARE Nepal as well as to address the issues of adolescent girls, CARE Nepal should work with respective agencies and groups

Does the governance framework help you understand and address bad governance as a UCP in your specific context?

The GPF is a simplified tool which is easy to understand and use for programme and project planning and implementation. It is also user friendly for governance situation assessment but needs some disaggregation of its sub-domain to make it applicable. As Underlying Causes of Poverty Analysis (UCPA) has effectively practiced at the group level it needs to initiate discourse on the second generation issues at different levels as well.

Do you agree with the overall theory of change? Why? Do you agree with the three domain-specific hypotheses? What changes would you propose?

CARE Nepal completely agrees with the theory of change as well as domain wise hypothesis. The pyramid easily and simply conveys the theory of change by empowering citizens, by promoting more accountable and effective public authorities and by expanding spaces for negotiation between citizens and authorities. As described in the GPF project document the GPF is not prescriptive, but is flexible to help CARE offices to identify the most meaningful contribution to change in a given context. It is not static but dynamic so the GPF applies to all levels; local, national and global.

Recommendations for modifying the GPF

Given your answers to the above questions, please outline any recommendations that you have for improving or modifying the GPF to make it more relevant and useful for your work. (5 key bullet points maximum)

The vertical and horizontal linkages between citizen groups at the grassroots and like-minded coalitions at district and national level is an intervention that could fit in domain 1 on empowered citizens or under domain 3 on spaces. It could be linked to social accountability in domain 1.

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Policy formulation and advocating for transformative policies is an important element of work that is being done. An additional sub-domain in domain 3 could be created as “policy advocacy” to capture CARE’s own work in coalitions.

The post conflict context of Nepal creates challenges for working on governance. Yet the two elements peace and governance are two interrelated concepts. Political parties, public authorities and other power holders do not want to share their information although there are the high priorities of common people. Absence of rule of law, confusion, less accountability, transition and restructuring are some of the challenges during this period. So, peace and governance could be another sub-domain. For a country like Nepal there needs to be specific discussion on how peace and governance relate to each other.

The pyramid in the framework may not be enough to address the progress and process of GPF. It should be properly linked with WE and other programming frameworks.

CARE Nepal’s internal capacity on governance could be further enhanced for the effective use of this framework. Similarly, the horizontal linkage should be promoted. Mechanism for sharing and learning of practice at different project and programme level and knowledge management should be promoted.

What would you keep the same in the framework?

CARE Nepal agrees that the Framework is simple and practical and as such it would continue its use as per the context and project specific needs.

Section 5: Conclusions & Moving Forward – Maximum 2 Pages

CARE’s role Overall what do you think CARE’s role in promoting governance should be? Should we

be engaging in all three domains? And how?

One of the major issues related to good governance in Nepal is the lack of proper information flow on rights and provisions from the state and non-state parties. A complete package suitable for each level should be designed and used for providing clear and clean information. For example, the groups are aware of the budgetary provision of the Village Development Committees (VDC) but are not knowledgeable about the VDC grant expenditure guideline, participatory planning process, timeline of planning process, LSGA, Gender Policy, Interim Constitution/Plan, MDGs etc. Similarly, the situation is same of health and education sector. Again, the institutional mechanism for transferring the knowledge and awareness through their peer groups and family members should be promoted. Proper and accurate information on legal provision and citizen’s rights should be disseminated. The field visits highlighted the following potential areas for CARE Nepal to engage in the future5: CARE has a role in the following areas to promote good governance:

CARE has a good acceptance and recognition at community and district level even in the Terai that will be an asset for CARE to work in this region as well.

It has a wider social network which can be useful for wider governance intervention so intervention in the areas like transparency and good governance would be an asset.

Disaggregation of sub-domain for level wise propose would be useful for implementation propose The institutional mechanism for transfer the knowledge and awareness through their peer groups

and family members should be promoted. Proper and accurate information on legal provision and citizen’s rights should be disseminated.

Political power is another most important aspect of governance. Efforts are necessary for political party sensitization, participatory planning process, public auditing, budget to ensure participation of impact and targeted population.

5 The following bullet points reflect the analysis of the consultant.

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UCPA is effective tool for PVSE analysis but it is not enough to address the issues like empowerment and income generation. It should be standardized to address the first, second and third generation issues.

Political parties, DDC, VDCs, Line agencies and NGOs (other than partners) are not interlinked and coordinated adequately, are unavoidable components of governance.

Many discussions identified the role of CARE in governance sector as integrated planning with sector-wide approach is necessary for which CARE can provide facilitative leadership. It is also recognized for its efforts on awareness raising and empowering women, Dalit, Janajati, poor and DAG.

The current programme focus is empowerment of citizens. There is no link between empowered citizen and public authority and power holders which should be bridge through both side intervention and linkage

More citizen surveillance tools for planning and budget monitoring, performance measure, monitoring of service delivery etc should be developed and used.

CARE should work to upscale and scale out GARI and standardize the GPF. More work is necessary on information sharing, dissemination and knowledge management During the validation process it is also recommended that CARE Nepal has the following role to

promote good governance:o CARE should be more transparent in its projects including promotion of CARE’s internal

transparencyo CARE should address the strategic need of the staffs and partners to internalize the GPFo CARE should support joint planning with other stakeholder to avoid duplication and

overlapso CARE should have long term visionary plan to address these issueso Should implement long term programmes instead of short term interventionso Should equally work with duty bearers for increased accountability and for upstream policy

influenceo CARE should assess the situation of internal governance

Gender equity How does gender relate to governance in your context (e.g. in the practice of

citizenship, in how authorities treat women, inclusivity and responsiveness of spaces to poor women etc)?

Nepal is a patriarchal society where people value men more than women. Caste and gender discrimination are seriously hampering good governance efforts in Nepal. Due to patriarchal construct and mind-set, women and girls are considered as subordinates to men in Nepali society, resulting in discrimination and exploitation within households and outside. This has led to a poor status of women in every aspect of life. Women empowerment, society free from violence against women and empowered women with an environment with use of full rights by women is CARE Nepal’s major agendas for good governance. CARE Nepal has been able to mobilize women and People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) led NGOs and networks to link local level initiatives with national movements. It has been contributing historically to oppressed group's movements for the restoration of their human rights. Through active interface between women CA members and grass roots women, CARE Nepal has been able to bring the community level women's voices into national level debates thereby influencing policies and laws and monitoring their implementation. Some of these voices are around women's role in state restructuring, peace-building, citizenship rights, equal wages, violence against women and girls, and women's participation in the political process and the making of a new Constitution. Similarly, CARE Nepal’s affiliation with various networks and alliances working on various issues like Gender Based Violence, Women's Rights Network, Dalit and Janajati Federations, Land and Agrarian Reform, Peace Building, Engagement with Development Community and Host Government through Association of International NGOs has been contributing its governance initiatives.

During the validation workshop many insight had been shared on the gender and governance issues. The mind set of men as well as women in it-self is a major challenge for women empowerment. Women’s level of self confidence is very low and people don’t believe on women’s leadership. Women are overloaded with

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domestic chores and mostly violated by men and women as well. Legal provisions are still not in the favour of women and VAW. Though women’s collective voice is important for social transformation, yet very less has been done towards this end effectively and efficiently. The sense of gender sensitiveness is not enough at policy level and there is ignorance of their voices at all levels. Similarly, there is no political commitment to uplift the status of women.

How central are women and girls to your work (main impact groups)? Are you including a gender equity focus in your governance work? How? Are you using any specific framework/model?

Women and girls are primary focus of CARE programs globally. Gender equity through affirmative actions is used as a strategy to achieve gender equality. CARE Nepal uses gender analysis framework for understanding the key issues. Also the women empowerment framework comprising of Agency, Relationship and Structure as three core elements is used to address those issues.

There are evident overlaps between the WE framework and the Governance framework. How do you think gender and WE framework relates to governance? How the GPF and the WE framework relate and complement each other?

CARE Nepal has made a deliberate choice to reach the poorest of the poor within whom women and girls from the most vulnerable and socially excluded groups are its priority focus.

CI Accountability Have you done any work to improve CARE’s internal accountability? What type of

work? Do you explicitly link it to your governance work?

CARE has gender mainstreaming and good governance related policies. It’s partners also have these policies and are in practice. Social and public audit practice is existing in some projects like SHAKTI. Similarly, social audits are incorporated in SHAKTIs’ detail implementation plan. Positive discrimination policy has been adopted by SHAKTI partner NGOs while hiring staff. Likewise, CARE has practiced annual review and reflection, annual progress report sharing with all stakeholders, process documentation and dissemination and project progress. Sharing the learning with media people to reach general public are some of the tools practised to promote internal accountability.

During the discussion on CAREs internal accountability in the validation workshop, it was advised that CARE should share its budget before and after each event to promote transparency. It was also suggested that CARE’s partners should be transparent and accountable while selecting the project.

Other Power Holders Although public authorities are central to the GPF, we also acknowledge that other

power holders are relevant for governance work. Do you engage with other power holders? What type of work do you do?

CARE Nepal’s strategy is to create enabling environment by working with local government, service providers and other power-holders to create popular spaces through PECs and to enable more informal linkages. It has also an active engagement with traditional healers, local elites, political and religious leaders and social activists.

Governance SII

After the completion of the GPF, there is a possibility to roll out a governance Strategic Impact Inquiry. Do you think this would be useful? If so, what specific elements would you like to see included?

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It is too early for CARE Nepal to talk about any specific elements. There are many possible themes – internal accountability. Interface between women empowerment and governance work, etc that could be included.

Are there any lessons out of the Women’s empowerment that you think we should be aware of?

CARE’s work with women and PVSE is focussed in the most marginalized segment of the society. Short term intervention including focusing only on awareness raising could increase their vulnerability. So focus should be increased to livelihoods, skills and income generation activities linking with others or with CAREs’ own efforts for sustained empowerment.

Comment from consultant:

The following parameters would be useful while understanding and addressing the governance issues like participation and voice; heterogeneity and inclusiveness; access to lands, territories, resources and related practices; Accountability (political, administrative and financial); power relations, dispute resolution and equity; agencies of change, respect for local knowledge, value, skills and management systems; planning and decision-making practices; implementation, self-monitoring, adaptive capacity and resilience; constitution, compliance and enforcement of rules at local level; and mechanism and capacity to monitor macro environment.

The GPF also should analyse the four areas like: (i) context – the local and national structures, processes, legal framework and resources that influence the governance; (ii) actors – the stakeholders including both the demand and the supply side, included and excluded in particular sector including their powers, interests, and incentives for change; (iii) governance and accountability relations (iv) an analysis of the governance reform readiness.

Most of the present interventions are limited at community levels that are mostly focused on awareness raising. There is a need to develop an index that could capture the whole development intervention. Ministry of local Development has been carrying out Minimum Condition and Performance Measure (MC/PM) to assess performance of public authorities which can be used as a tool for local participatory good governance situation assessment with minimum refinement. Different indicators should be developed in these sub-domains and project based rapid assessment need to be carried out to see the exact situation of the projects. A handy tool is required to practice it on the ground.

As CARE Nepal is targeting to the government, public sector and power holder’s accountability it is also important to align the GPF with government accountability and governance framework to make it more practical. In countries like Nepal, timeliness, participatory, service delivery, monitoring and policy framework are important dimensions which are not adequately captured within the sub-domain. As suggested by the Local Development Officer of Dhanusha “it should go beyond the sub-national and community level and needs a broad-based consensus for facilitation of different types and level of stakeholders working in this field”.

Annex: I

CARE Nepal Governance programme – fit with domains and sub-domains:

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This is the consolidated picture of 8 project inputs on their governance interventions and achievements. These projects were CHULI, SAKCHAM II, CSP-II, CRADLE, CHUNAUTI, SHAKTI, CA INITIATIVE, WYPSP.

Domain/Sub-domain Programme InterventionEmpowered citizens Working through UCPA and PECs is a particular intervention for a number of

CARE Nepal projects, increasing their access to information. Projects utilise this model modifying it for their particular focuses.

1.1 Rights awareness PECs are the place for discussion of issues, providing them with information on policies and provisions (CHULI, SAKCHAM II, SHAKTI, CSP)UCPA is an entry point strategy at the beginning (SHAKTI) ensuring targeting of poverty pockets, and then working through REFLECT centres to raise awareness to access resources such as natural resource management. Self Applied Technique for Quality Health to make women and their families aware and empowered on MNCH and service and increase marginalised populations access to these services(CRADLE)Training on gender, disaster risk reduction, emergency plans and small scale mitigation measures (SHAKTI); training on women’s rights instruments and national laws and policies (CA Initiative)Peace ambassadors capacity built in session facilitation and weekly sessions on rights, governance, gender sensitive budget planning (WYPSP)Health policy orientation and sharing to Mothers Groups (CRADLE)Citizen charter and pro-poor health policies documents display at health service delivery outlets and community and district level (CRADLE)

Voice and agency Training and equipping PEC facilitators with relevant information (CHULI, SAKCHAM II) and training for poor people and young people on knowledge and leadership skills and training, negotiation and advocacy (CHUNAUTI, CRADLE)Support for campaigns (women’s rights forums, land rights forums) and using UCPA to identify joint actions in poverty pockets (CHULI, CSP) and capacity of dalits and poor people’s groups to raise demands and rights on MNH (CRADLE)Active participation of community women in collective issues to influence constitution drafting, review of draft constitution and compilation for submission to committees (CA Initiative, Formation of women’s groups (Bahaskendra) and men’s groups (SHAKTI)Formation of women’s network at VDC and district level (SHAKTI

1.3 Collective action Training and grant support to CBOs formed by the project to enhance their capacity and skill to undertake activities like rallies and street dramas on specific issues such as child marriages (CHUNAUTI)Support to social campaigns such as gender based violence, caste discrimination, total sanitation, wage increase, gender equity, etc (CSP, SHAKTI, SAKCHAM II, CHULI)Networking from local to national level (SAKCHAM II, CA Initiative)Interaction between PVSEs, CSOs and service providers and participation of PVSE in VDC level planning (SAKCHAM II, CHULI)

1.4 Social accountability Support in budget analysis and public hearing of the VDCs, monitoring of implementation of domestic violence legislation, scorecard of maternal health and pregnancy outcome surveillance (CHULI, CA Initiative, CHUNAUTI, CRADLE)Interactions between women groups and VDC level stakeholders, quarterly community support groups, monitoring meeting of DRRC at VDC level and paralegal committees (SHAKTI,

1.5 Representation Formation of CSOs such as School Management Committee (SMC), Health Facility Management Committee (HFMC) and ensure inclusion of poor and

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excluded communities (CSP, SHAKTI, SAKCHAM II, CHULI) and inclusion of poor and excluded in NFOWRC (women’s network) (CA Initiative) Advocacy on representation and community participation issues (SHAKTI, Poverty pocket identification ensuring CARE’s programming is targeting the poorest (SAKCHAM II,

1.6 Internal accountability Start up workshop at VDC and DDC level (CHULI, SAKCHAM II, Public hearing and joint social audits (CHULI, CSP II, CRADLE) Review and reflection (CHULI, SAKCHAM II, SHAKTI, CHUNAUTI, CRADLE) and process documentation and learning (CRADLE)Programme monitoring visit by PCC members (CHULI, SAKCHAM II) Develop a system of good governance in NFOWRC (CA Initiative, Joint media conference (CRADLE)

Accountable and effective public authorities2.1 Transparency and access to information

Technical capacity building of HFOMC, HF and DPHOs to be transparent and provide citizens with accessible and appropriate information on MNH services and logistical support to DPHOs and HFs to make them equipped with public policy and spending (CRADLE)Training and practice on public auditing (CSP II)Organise meeting at VDC level and provide space to explain provision and procedure (SHAKTI

2.2 Responsiveness and accountability

Pro-poor planning support to VDCs and budget analysis and public hearing (CHULI) Ensure PVSE participation in VDC level planning process and awareness VDC level planning (SAKCHAM, SHAKTI, Create pressure to allocate the fund as per decentralisation act and to service providers to address their basic rights (SAKCHAM II, Joint monitoring with VDC and community support groups and paralegals (SHAKTICapacity enhancement of public authorities like health service providers and planner on social inclusion, RBA, and GED to engage with and respond to marginalised people’s needs (CRADLE, SHAKTI)Strengthening local government bodies capacity decentralisation and resource mobilisation (CRADLE)Engage VDC, DDC, political parties in UCPA process (CSP II)Capacity enhancement of CA Members through interactions on specific thematic issues such as women’s rights, natural resources management (CA Initiative)

2.3 Provision of services Developing technical capacity of health service providers to deliver quality health services (CRADLE)Orientation of pro-poor health policies and programmes through policy orientation and discussion for implementation of pro-poor health policy (CRADLE)Orientation of pro-poor provisions in CF guidelines so CFUGs allocate 35% profit for development of poor people (SHAKTI)Orientation of VDCs and PECs of provisions and services of different public authorities (SHAKTI)

2.4 Provision of justice and rule of law

Advocacy: at national level to promulgate separate law on Domestic Violence bill and community sensitisation on laws (CA Initiative); on implementation of legal provisions against child marriage etc (CHUNAUTI)Implementation of government provisions and rules (SHAKTI

2.5 Accountable customary institutions

Religious leaders (CHUNAUTI)

2.6 Engaging other power holders

Mobilisation of media (CHULI, CA Initiative, SAKCHAM, CSP II, CRADLE, SHAKTI)Trained traditional healers (SHAKTI, CRADLE)

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Religious leaders and political leaders (CHUNAUTI, CRADLE)3 Expanded spaces for negotiation3.1 Institutionalised spaces Strengthening mothers groups and HFOMC (CRADLE)

School management committees and other service provider committees, other committees such as paralegal committees and DRR committees (CSP II, SHAKTIVDC planning (CHULI)

3.2 Popular /informal spaces Interactions and coordination between PVSEs (PEC groups and Bahas Kendra (women’s) groups), LEBs, CSOs and services providers (CHULI, SHAKTI, CSP II, CRADLE) and interactions with CA Members visits to districts (CA Initiative)PECs and federated PECs and women’s rights forums (CHULI, SAKCHAM)

3.3 Inclusion Social mapping to increase representation of dalits, poor women in formal committees (CRADLE, Creating pressure for inclusion of PVSE in Integrated Planning Committee at VDC level (CSP, SAKCHAM II, CHULI)Alliance building with like minded groups and networks (SAKCHAM II, CA Initiative

3.4 Dialogue and non-violent resolution of conflict

UCPA together with people (CHULI, CSP II, CRADLE)

Do no harm training (CHULI, CSP II, CRADLE)Increase the women’s participation in peace process (SAKCHAM IICoordination and support to LPC at district and VDC level (SAKCHAM IICounselling services for women (SHAKTITraditional healer oriented about reproductive health /campaign (SHAKTI)

Note:

Vertical and horizontal linkages between citizen groups at the grassroots and like-minded coalitions at district and national level is an intervention that could fit in domain 1 on empowered citizens or under domain 3 on spaces. It could be linked to social accountability in domain 1. Policy formulation and advocating for transformative policies is an important element of work being done. Again it is not clear where this should fit. The group felt that it could go under domain 2 in the sub-domain on Rule of Law. Alternatively it was suggested that there could be another sub-domain in domain 3 (expanded spaces) which would be called policy advocacy. This might also capture CARE’s own work in coalitions. Our work within CARE and also outside of CARE is not easily captured by the domains and sub-domains. We need to locate our own actions more clearly in this framework. Finally some actors can fit into different domains depending on their behaviours. Community Forestry User Groups (CFUGs) are community-based organisations representing their members interests and acting as a powerful lobby to local government. However equally they are responsible for key governance functions within communities, including local development and soicla inclusion. Therefore they are also a public authority. The framework needs to be clear on the fluidity of actors and to define terms like public authorities more clearly.

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