The endorsement of the Sustainable Development Goals and the transition to a federal system of government are overlapping in Nepal. Coordinating the roles and mandates of Nepal’s non-heirarchic three levels of government with respect to implementation of the SDGs will require a thought-through approach, writes Pitamber Sharma.

The Sustainable Development Goals represent the most ambitious and comprehensive global initiative ever undertaken. The ambition of the SDGs is to ‘leave no one behind’, globally and in each country, region and community. The 17 Goals, with 169 targets and over 230 indicators, are designed to ensure the welfare of mankind, and the health and integrity of the planet. Further, they are not just a call to action to attain the targets. They go much further in that they seek to address the often complex and entrenched roots and causes of national, regional and global economic, social, environmental and even political problems. The SDGs therefore pose an overarching and complex challenge: that of translating and adapting global and national goals to achievable and context-specific sub-national targets and indicators.

Nepal is among the countries that made an early start in taking the SDG commitments seriously. This is evidenced by the National Planning Commission’s 2015 report Sustainable Development Goals for Nepal 2016-30. The report made the first preliminary needs assessment as well as costing and financing strategy. NPC’s 2017 study Sustainable Development Goals: Status and Roadmap 2016-30 takes stock of Nepal’s development strategy and makes a preliminary projection of the roadmap for SDG attainment, with intermediate milestones for 2019, 2022, and 2025. But the task of institutionalizing these in the plans and programs of federal agencies, and then at the sub-national levels, remains daunting and has not yet begun.

The Constitution of Nepal, 2015 transformed Nepal from a unitary state to a federal republic. It also ushered in a fundamental paradigm shift in the systems, structures and functioning of sub-national governance. The constitution stipulates three levels of government. It envisages a significant restructuring of the federal government, and new governance structures at the province and local levels. Devolution of power is guaranteed through the exclusive and concurrent powers as provided in Schedules 5 to 9 of the constitution. As envisaged in the constitution a non-hierarchic three levels of government based on the principles of coordination, cooperation and coexistence have now come into being following local, federal and provincial elections. It will still take some time for the all-inclusive and comprehensive devolution to be fully operational but the shift is already being felt. For the first time in two and a half centuries in Nepal provinces and local governments have the power and indeed the responsibility of defining their own development agenda in coordination and cooperation with the federal government.

Seven provincial governments and 753 local governments are already implementing their first annual budget. Over 40,000 representatives have been elected to different bodies. For the first time in Nepal’s history, women, dalits, disadvantaged and minority groups and janajatis comprise nearly 40 percent of the elected representatives at the local levels. Almost all local and provincial governments are in the process of conceptualizing a coherent development vision and designing periodic plans. Within governments at each level, albeit at a pace much slower than desired, institutional systems are being created to support the translation of the development pledges to achievable reality. This provides an opportune moment to integrate SDG goals and targets in the process of sub-national development thinking and sectoral planning. More importantly, since this is the first government at the sub-national levels, institutions and systems that are created and development thinking that is embedded in the government bureaucracy will find a precedence and resonance in succeeding periodic and annual plans and programs.

In a complementary turn of events, the endorsement of the SDGs and the beginnings of the federal system of governance have tended to overlap in Nepal. While the more relevant SDGs and targets provide an initial framework for setting development priorities at the province and municipality level, the commitment of elected provincial and local governments with respect to meeting their SDG targets can ensure the alignment of the province and municipality targets with that of the nation. Setting of SDGs targets at the national level becomes meaningful only when they are achieved at the sub-national levels. A critical task then is to ensure that the priority SDG targets are identified in each context to inform the overall development and sectoral planning as well as program formulation and implementation processes.

The institutional focal point for SDG implementation, support and auditing at the federal level has to be the apex planning body. This agency should also develop and adapt methods and tools to guide SDG localization at the provincial and local levels. Further, SDG targets are to be attained over a 15 year time horizon. Not all SDG goals may need priority attention in the first phase. Some SDG targets may be more urgent than others. There may be a hierarchy of SDG targets, and some could be a precondition for achieving others. Also, achieving some targets may contribute to achieving multiple targets and indicators. These conceptual issues can meaningfully be addressed at the national level.  

Provincial governments have now been formed and are operational. But provincial institutions of governance and planning are in their infancy. At this level, the institutional base for SDG localization has to be the provincial planning agency, which should assess and review province and local level data and set SDG targets and indicators for the province. It can revise the periodic SDG targets and indicators for the province suggested by the federal planning agency. Also, the provincial planning agency would be best placed to support the internalization of SDG targets and devise appropriate indicators in the formulation, auditing and evaluation of sectoral development plans and programs of the provinces.

The municipalities can review and assess the SDG targets and indicators suggested by the provincial planning agency and make changes appropriate to their context. In most cases it will be at the local level that targets for Goal 1 (end poverty in all forms), Goal 2 (end hunger and achieve food security), Goal 3 (ensure healthy lives), Goal 4 (ensure inclusive and equitable education), Goal 5 (gender equality and women’s empowerment), Goal 6 (availability of water and sanitation), Goal 7 (access to modern energy), Goal 11 (inclusive, sustainable cities), and Goal 13 (action on climate change) have to be set and addressed. Indicators selected at the local level will have to be more context specific, disaggregated and guided by the motto: leave no one behind.

The localization of the SDGs at the municipality level will require intensive support (both in terms of sensitization for SDG integration  and requisite capacity building) mainly from the provincial planning agency. This can ensure the alignment of municipal targets with provincial targets and also strengthen cooperation and coordination between the province and the municipalities.

The above discussion basically highlights the fact that the process of integration of the SDGs in the planning at federal, province and municipal levels should be an iterative process where the ultimate national goals might remain the same but will have to be realistically assessed and reviewed at province and municipal levels annually and periodically. The federal set-up in Nepal, and consequent devolution of political, administrative and financial powers, can ensure that sub-national governments own the SDG targets and strive for their attainment in line with national targets. 

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