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Programme Phase II Programme Phase I

Programme Phase II (2002-2003) (NEP/01/020)

Project Classification
Brief Description
Strategy
Project Results Framework
Management Arrangements
Benificiaries

Project Classification

The programme will consolidate the success from the first phase through internalization of the Programme activities into the municipalities while at the same time adjust the focus of the Programme to address the needs that have occurred since the inception of phase I in 1997. Through social mobilization and capacity building in urban and adjoining rural areas the Programme aims at alleviating poverty and reduces discrimination of the disadvantaged sections of society. Good urban governance will be sought through four main areas of support

1. To strengthen the capacity of municipalities and TLOs to assist in the formulation of pro-poor policies and prepare them for the still increasing level of devolution
2. To strengthen the ICT component of the programme to promote E-governance and E-commerce initiatives
3. To increase the market linkages between rural and urban areas and promote entrepreneurship among the poor
4. To produce policy guidelines on good urban governance to national and local governments based on the experience of the Programme since inception.

The phase II of RUPP will also mainstream HIV/AIDS into the Programme. Nepal has entered the stage of a concentrated epidemic i.e. HIV/AIDS prevalence consistently exceeds 5% in one or more sub-groups. Since the grass root institution developed by RUPP through social mobilization process and the Municipalities could be an important vehicle to mitigate HIV/AIDS issue in the urban area, a new dimension has been added for phase II programme. The programme activities for this new dimension will be focused on three of the five types of services outlined by the UNDP's corporate strategy on HIV/AIDS:

1. Capacity development of municipal government
2. Mainstreaming the municipal planning to address HIV/AIDS
3. Information and multi-media technology to create awareness and disseminate knowledge

The first phase of RUPP addressed some of the fundamental governance issues in the 12 program municipalities. The major elements of the first phase are the following:

Institutional development: Primarily starting with social capital formation at three levels- municipality, Tole, and communities. Community mobilization is the main tool for implementing the programme activities at the local level. Community mobilization initiatives have resulted in the creation of institutional base at the local level which in turn have facilitated decentralized planning, sustainable development, mobilization of local resources for development, poverty alleviation and empowerment of women and the communities at large. Mobilization of communities takes place at the lowest spatial unit called Tole/Lane. Formation of Tole/Lane organization (TLOs) takes place at this level which formulates Tole Development plan (TDP) and Enterprise Development Plan (EDP). 2,546 TLOs have been formed in selected wards of partner municipalities and 340 are in Rural market Centers. Number of households covered by these TLOs currently stands at 109,710. Community Saving at TLO level has also been noteworthy and played a catalytic role in enhancing cohesiveness among the TLO members in addition to creating additional resource bases and ensuring long term sustainability of the groups formed. These funds are being used for Tole development as well as for the development of economic enterprises.

Participatory approach in urban governance initiatives is one of the major thrusts of the Programme. The formation of TLO's is therefore one of the crucial activities that seeks to enhance community participation in municipal decision making. It is along these lines that TLOs are becoming effective as grassroots level institutions articulating need based local developmental agenda and embarking on poverty alleviation activities. All Tole Developments plans (TDPs) formulated at community level are subjected to scrutiny and prioritization through different tiers ranging from Tole to the municipal council level. The programme supports such community efforts by means of seed grant, training and research interventions. On the basis of TDP, TLOs have created a number of social and economic infrastructures by mobilizing local resources (funds from other projects, line agencies, DDC, municipalities, ward and community contribution) in different wards of selected municipalities and rural market centres.

The development of Information System is one of the basic activities of the Programme with regards to institutional system, development. Information system in the form of database has been developed by the participating municipalities and RMC's.

Establishment of Participatory Municipality and VDC Planning and Monitoring system is another major element of the program. This approach in many ways presents a shift from the traditional urban governance practices characterized by narrow technocratic urban management strategies involving centralize decision and top-down policy making to a more holistic strategy that seeks to engage a host of urban actors and communities in the delivery of good and results oriented urban governance.

The training on the process of Participatory Municipality Development Planning (PMDP) as well as Participatory Village Development Planning (PVDP) has been provided to mayors, deputy-mayors, VDC Chairpersons, ward members and Tole/Lane Organization (TLO) representative of partner municipalities and Rural Market Centres. The training on PMDP has been conducted in all 12 partner municipalities. Similarly, PVDP training has been provided to participants from a number of Rural Market Centres.

The Programme is also supporting partner municipalities to establish documentation and information cell in the form of "Urban Information Centre". These centres have been integrated within the municipal structure. Such centres have been established in all partner municipalities. Various types of capacity building activities have been carried out for municipal staff members with a view to ensuring the achievement of the goals of god urban governance.

Besides undertaking developmental initiatives by collaboratively working out comprehensive TDP (tole development plan), preparation of Enterprise Development Plan (EDP) for interested community enterprises is one of the important function of TLO which in essence are poverty alleviation initiative that seek to capitalize on local potential. The Programme supports prospective partners to undertake selected economic enterprises based upon their potential to Promote and strengthen rural-urban linkage.

Training and capacity building is yet another important component of the Programme. The training component of the programme has been categorized into four major types, such as Community Enterprises Training, Human Resource Training, Programme Staff Training and Additional Training. The Community Enterprise Training, which includes Skill Transfer, Enterprise Management and Technology Transfer and RLL is basically conducted for potential community partners for maturation as well as for skill development. Human Resource Training are basically related to building professional capacities of stakeholders including government agencies, local authorities and the members of functional groups of Tole/Lane Organization (TLO).

Impressive results have been achieved the first phase of the Programme. The second phase will build on the successes of the first phase. Principal among these will be the concept of empowering the poor and the disadvantage through the process of the social mobilization. The focus of the second phase will be in the line with the recommendation of the Contextual Evaluation Mission, the Tripartite review and the overall development trends of Govenrment of Nepal and UNDP. Emphasis will be on four major area: Capacity building, ICT, rural-urban market linkages and pro-poor urban policy promotion. The areas are interlinked building on rural-urban governance and regional market development issues with a special focus on women and occupational castes.

1. Capacity Building: The recently promulgated Local Self Governance Act and the associated rules and regulations provide a range of responsibilities to the municipalities. Consequently. RUPP will increase its focus on capacity building of the municipalities in areas of (i)Participatory planning (ii) management of sectoral functions such as water supply and sanitation, energy, health, etc. (iii) office management, (iv)financial management including expenditure and revenue management (v) audit and (iv) monitoring.
2. Information and Communication Technology: Building on the already established Urban Information Centres (UIC) new ICTs will be introduced to promote poverty alleviation through linking citizens with local governments and producers with traders with the aim of improving rural-urban governance and commerce opportunities.
3. Rural Urban Market Linkages: Through the promotion and creation of linkage enterprises with a Rulal-Urban focus the economic linkage between rural and urban areas will be strengthened. Special focus will be on increasing the opportunities of women and ethnic and occupational community participation in this process.
4. Pro-poor urban policies: Govenrment of Nepal is in the process of formulating the Tenth Five-Year Development Plan. RUPP has been identified by the government as a viable urban development strategy that ought to be incorporated into the 10th plan. The programme will support Govenrment of Nepal in formulating policies and guidelines for good urban governance.

In the present context of rapid urbanisation in Nepal, HIV/AIDS has become an important urban issue/problem. In fact, Nepal has entered the stage of a 'concentrated epidemic' i.e. HIV/AIDS prevalence consistently exceeds 5% in one or more sub-groups. And those groups are mostly located in the urban areas. In 1995, Govenrment of Nepal adopted national policy with priority to HIV/AIDS and STD prevention program and need for multi-sectoral and decentralized response. Since the grass root institution developed by RUUP through social mobilization process and the municipal government could be an important vehicle to mitigate HIV/AIDS issue in the area, a new dimension has been added for phase II programme. The programme activities for this new dimensional will be focus on three of the five types of services outlined by the UNDP's corporate strategy on HIV/AIDS:

1. Capacity development of municipal government
2. Mainstreaming the municipal planning to address HIV/AIDS, and
3. Information and multimedia technology to create awareness and disseminate knowledge.

These programme activities will be implemented in close coordination with other national/international programmes implemented in Nepal

RUUP, in course of its implementation, will link and coordinate with DDC, line agencies and concerned VDCs to strengthen decentralization procedure in accordance with LSGA 2055.

Project Result Framework

Outcomes addressed (as in SRF):

1. Effective regulatory, legal and policy framework for decentralization and local capacity to plan and mange local development.
2. Poor communities exercise their right to self-organization and to built alliance.

Partnership:

It has established that a decentralized governance system is imperative for Nepal given the country's topography and socio-economic diversity. Such structural changes require concerted efforts of all development partners bringing together government (national and sub national), NGOs, CBOs, and donors. UNDP has been supporting the government in developing and implementing decentralization policies and plans since the early 90s. UNDP, as a lead agency, is helping the government coordinate the efforts of various donors in this sector.

PDDP, LGP and RUPP are the three UNDP programs that are assisting the government in strengthening local governance. This is being pursued through intervention at three levels. At the central level, the support is provided to MLD and NPC for formulation of policies, regulatory frameworks and guidelines. At the meso level , the support is in the from of capacity building of sub-national institution -DDCs in the case of PDDP and LGP and municipalities in the case of RUPP . At the micro level, the focus is on the empowerment of the community organizations through social mobilizations.

The MLD will be the lead partner as implementing agency. The MLD will also cooperate with UNDP in internalizing the Programme into the municipalities, which is under the auspices of the Municipal Division of the MLD and will serve as lead agency in mainstreaming RUPP activities into non-RUPP municipalities. The NPC will play another key role as chair of the Steering Committee. With guidance of the Programme the NPC will contribute with national development plans, which take into consideration the urban poor and rural-urban linkages. The municipalities are the main stakeholders at the local level .They have committed themselves to internalize the Programme and continue the development efforts of RUPP. As champion of urban development MuAN will increase the focus on urban issues in cooperation with the Programme through increased advocacy at national and local level. At the district and local level the municpal adjoining VDCs and DDCs will contribute to the addressed outcome with interaction with the municipalities to better coordinate the cross-judicial development efforts .The FNCCI and local CCIs will be some of the main partners together with MuAN in fostering a conducive environment for PPPs and support local entrepreneurs.

The Programme will partner with other relevant UN organization and programmes in Nepal and regionally. RUPP will also coordinate its activities with UNDP sister programmes such as PDDP/LGP, MEDEP and TUGI to exchange experiences and ensure complimentarity of Programmes.

Management Arrangements

During RUPP's first phase it was deemed necessary that technical support was needed for the initiation of the Programme. It was therefore decided to appoint UNCHS (Habitat) as executing agent in close cooperation with the National Planning Commission. It was in 1997 estimated that the cooperation and coordination between the Ministry of Local Development, the Ministry of Housing and Physical Planning (now Ministry of Physical Planning and Works) and the local government institutions was too weak. Both parties have however grown with the task , especially since the implementation of the Local Self-Governance Act of 1999 .To ensure sustainability of the Programme through local ownership , the Programme will therefore follow the National Execution (NEX) modality in the second phase to maximum national support for the implementation process in line with the UNDP corporate policy .The Responsible institution will be the Ministry of Local Development (MLD),which is already a member of both the Steering Committee and the Coordination Committee . The MLD will appoint a National Programme Director (NDP).

The Programme management structure will be altered for the second phase implementation in order to increase efficiency and promote a swift internalization of the programme into the municipalities.

The Steering Committee (SC) will be continued with the changed structure. The mandate will be to facilitate the implementation of the programme activates, to assess the experiences gained so far and assist in applying these to the macro level. All parties represent in the SC will provide support to the Programme management according to their expertise. The SC will meet quarterly to monitor the progress and guide the management accordingly. The members of SC will be the member of NPC who will also chair the committee, the Secretary of MLD who will act as vice-chairman, the secretary of the MPPW, the president of ADDCN, the president of MuAN and a representative from UNDP. The NPD and NPM from PPPUE/Nepal will be invited to attend the meeting. Representatives from the other government institutions, RUNET and the private sector may also be invited to participate. The National Programme Director (NPD) will perform as Secretary of the SC supported by the National Programme Manager (NPM).

The Programme Coordinate Committee (PCC) will function as a coordination team with the responsibility of facilitating implementation and monitoring of Programme activities on a regular basis. The members of the committee will be a Programme Coordinator appointed by the NPC, a Programme coordinator appointed by MPPW, the NPD who will chair the Committee and the NPM who will serve as a Secretary of the committee. All decisions will be made in a consultative process that involves UNDP in accordance with the provisions of the Programme Document.

The Programme Management Unit (PMU) will be in charge of the implementation of the Programme in accordance with the guidelines concurred by the SC and the PCC. The daily management of PMU will be facilitated by the NPM under the directions of the NPD. Beside the NPM the PMU will consist three RUPP specialists who are familiar with the Programme and can assist with substantive inputs to the implementation process. Issues that may arise within each objective that cannot be covered by the permanent staff of the PMU should be dealt with via national or international consultants.

The Regional Development Advisers (RDA) will be the backbone of the implementation in the field. There will be five RDAs, each covering 2-5 municipalities. Their role will be to serve as a backstopping mechanism of the Support Organizations (SO). They will be advising the municipalities and especially the SO staff, monitoring the progress of the Programme at field level and reporting back to the PMU.

The Support Organization (SO) will be internalized into the municipalities. Under the daily auspices of the Municipal Secretary the SO will be implementing the Programme at the municipal level. The SO will be headed by SO Manager (former DM) supported by several Social Mobilizers, Market Centre Facilitator, a Finance Officer and other required staff.

The Partnership Development Committee (PDC) will continue to exist in all 12 municipalities, with the aim of managing the Programme activities including the Market Development Fund (MDF) and give guidance to the SO. The member of PDC will be from the local governance stakeholders including the participating VDCs and selected Wards, the MPPW district officer, commercial banks, NGOs, private sector organizations and the Deputy Mayor. The PDC will be chaired by the Mayor. The chairman of the DDC will also be invited to participate. The SO will serve as PDC Secretariat.

The Rural Urban Linkage Network (RUNET) will continue in its present shape as a forum through which the mayors of the RUPP municipalities can meet and share Programme strategies and experiences and consult each other on the internalization of the Programme.

The Public Private Partnership for the Urban Environment Desk (PPPUE) in Kathmandu is the management unit of a separate UNDP Programme. The PPPUE desk will be geographically located at the same vicinity as the RUPP office. RUPP through its SOs should regularly consult with PPPUE on issues related to public private partnerships and assist the Programme in its implementation process.

To accommodate a smooth exit strategy during the second phase, Market Development Advisers will be removed from the municipalities to internalize the SO under supervision of the Municipal Secretary. To mitigate challenges in the first period Regional Development Advisers will backstop and advices the SO and the Secretary on the Programme implementation process. Furthermore, each municipality has created and presented a strategy of how to internalize the RUPP local staff by mid-2003. The SO will then be an integral part of the municipal structure, either as a separate division or incorporated into several of the existing divisions. Each municipality has already drafted on organizational structure, which incorporates RUPP's activities at the local level. This strategy should secure that RUPP's activities will be fully sustainable at the local level by December 2003.

To ensure a capacity strong Programme in the second phase staff needed in the second phase will be hired among the personnel from the first phase if suitable. This includes SO personnel, RDAs (former MDAs), RUPP specialists and the NPM.

The beneficiaries of the Programme will primarily be the urban poor, the Municipalities/VDC and the National Government

The Rural-Urban Poor

RUPP has in its first phase targeted poor communities in the selection of Municipalities and rural Market Centers. In the second phase RUPP will continue this support through increased focus on political, social and economic empowerment. Through the mobilization of the people in TLOs emphasis will be laid on social co-operation and political decision- making. At the same time the skills training will provide the communities with the tools needed for economic development. This is further strengthened through the financing and backstopping of the MDF in the municipalities, which will provide micro-credit funding for the poor.

Special emphasis is laid on the gender and lower and occupational caste aspects. Credit, technology transfer and special training will be provided to women, lower and occupational castes to provide them with the capacities needed for empowerment and social and economic development. At the same time it is ensured that half of the chairpersons of the TLOs will be women. Special training will also be provided to women and lower and occupational caste elected members of the municipalities wards and council.

The Muncipalities

In the second phase the focus on the capacity building of the municipalities will be increased. The Programmes related to participatory monitoring and management will continue ensuring efficient and participatory municipal governance. At the same time, the tasks of social mobilization and enterprise development will be transferred to the municipalities increasing the capacity of the municipalities and fostering por-poor planning and development also after the termination of RUPP. The whole process will be backed by training of municipal staff to expand their capacities to deal with increase in tasks and challenges. Municipalities interested in replicating RUPP with their own and MLD resources will also benefit from technical supports from the programme.

The National Government

RUPP will give substantive inputs and contribute with publications on urban development in Nepal based on its vast experience during the first and second phase of the Programme. These tools will help the government in dealing with the rapid urbanization of the country and assist in bending the exponential growth in urban poverty. RUPP can thus be an important tool for the formulation of nation-wide policies aimed at creating enabling environment for good urban governance.