Watering grassroots

Nepal can’t develop without improving the status of its villages, including on service delivery.

Developing infrastructure in remote parts of Nepal has historically been a neglected issue. Things were expected to improve after the introduction of the federal system. The new system came into full-fledged implementation after the first elections of federal, provincial and local units in 2017. One of the major objectives for adopting the federal system was to devolve powers to sub-national governments and strengthen them in terms of easing people’s daily lives, cutting red tape and taking state facilities closer to their doorsteps. After seven years of execution of the three-tier federal system, the sub-national authorities, however, couldn’t bring about expected improvement—bar some exceptions.