Dr. Kandel discusses with Development Advocate some of the key reasons why he is optimistic about Nepal’s prospects for making meaningful progress on the SDGs. These include the opportunities presented by the transition to federalism, the framework provided by the Constitution, and the ability to draw on Nepal’s - and NPC’s – experience of implementing the MDGs.

 “NPC—with UNDP’s support—is helping provincial governments to capture the essence of the SDGs in their plans, and similar efforts are also underway at the local level…It’s a lot of work, and there are bound to be obstacles, but it’s also a time of immense opportunity in terms of localizing the SDGs.”

“The principle of federalism has to do with distribution of power—where the federal government is responsible for policy, provincial governments for implementation and local governments for service delivery—and enabling a better, vertical system of checks and balances. So long as we are willing to abide by this, I have no doubt that we will be able to make progress.”

There are a great many differences between the MDGs and SDGs in terms of Nepal’s strategy and NPC’s role. This is not just in terms of the two frameworks, but in terms of a change in perspective of the country itself. When the MDGs were being implemented, Nepal was experiencing significant political instability and was still under a unitary administrative structure. The Constitution was still in the process of being written and we had barely emerged from a long conflict in which so many lives had been lost. Even under such conditions, the MDGs did make considerable impact in the social sector.

The SDG era, then, is one of comparative ease. For one, we now have a Constitution to guide us, and in my opinion, the mandate laid out by the Constitution has much in common with the mandate of the SDGs, particularly in term of the basic principles and fundamental rights that both the charter and the goals espouse at their core. This alignment between the two has certainly facilitated the internalization and implementation of the shared agenda.   

Back when we were working on the MDGs, we did not have well-functioning local or provincial governments in place. Now that we have elected representatives across the different tiers of governance, their commitment towards and enthusiasm for the sustainable development agenda is more than evident. But, of course, there is a need to help them better understand and internalize the goals—they have to gain a strong sense of ownership over them for their efforts to be effective and for social transformation to materialize.

There are obviously a number of challenges going forward in this. Where in the past we had a centrally-controlled government, now there are multiple governments, but so far, there hasn’t been sufficient clarity about their rights, roles and responsibilities, which has led to some tussles between the federal, provincial and local levels.

But these are, in my opinion, temporary technical issues, and the important thing is that there is collective agreement on the agenda. What’s more, the party that is currently in power at the central level has also won in most of the provinces. This raises the possibility of effective implementation, and it is up to us now to tackle the technical problems as quickly and neatly as possible.  

We are also preparing the 15^th Development Plan to further aid the implementation of both the Constitution and the SDGs, as well as working on a 25-year vision plan that not only incorporates the SDGs but looks beyond 2030 as well. Besides these national-level frameworks, we also have provinces that are preparing their own specific plans, and NPC—with UNDP’s support—is helping provincial governments to capture the essence of the SDGs in these. Similar efforts are also underway at the local level, and there is a clear necessity to push for internalization there too. It’s a lot of work, no doubt, and there are bound to be obstacles, but it’s also a time of immense opportunity in terms of localizing the SDGs through a strategy of cooperation and coordination, as envisioned by the Constitution.

Given the key role it played in the implementation of the MDGs, the NPC is a veritable hub of knowledge, and this technical capacity and institutional knowledge needs to now be transferred to the provincial and local levels. There are going to be planning commissions in each province; NPC must work in close coordination with these in the days to come, helping them gain a better grasp of development planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation—especially for ensuring all these processes are more evidence-based and SDGs-informed- so that they are able to successfully take forward development priorities. To that end, we are also producing a number of relevant knowledge products to serve as resources for provincial and local governments in their work.

Regarding SDG localization, some have raised the potential challenge of the need to strike a balance between respecting the principles of federalization and the autonomy of local governments on the one hand, while also having coherence through an overall framework of national priorities. I don’t see any particular conflict related to this at present, because as I said before, the party in power at the center has won seats around the country, so there is a collective, mutually-agreed agenda. And even if that wasn’t the case, and other parties had been elected at the provincial and local levels, the very fact that we have the Constitution means that we are all subject to the same overall vision and objectives, and this I believe goes beyond differences in political ideologies.

The problems that do crop up here and there are, I think, a matter of lack of experience. We are totally new to this federal setup, and there are bound to be hiccups in making this transition, whether it is a sense of competition between the federal and provincial levels or between the provincial and local levels. There are cases where elected representatives have complained that they have not been able to exercise the rights and roles they were granted, that there is a lack of support from the bureaucratic level. One of the most common complaints, for instance, has to do with the dearth of civil servants, which is a valid criticism, because although we have changed to a federal structure, there are still certain elements of our bureaucracy that remain stubbornly centralized—such as government employees who are reluctant to move away from the center.

But I trust that these issues will be resolved soon enough, especially in light of the Inter-Provincial Coordination Committee meeting that has been scheduled to take place under the Prime Minister. The principle of federalism has to do with distribution of power—where the federal government is responsible for policy, provincial governments for implementation and local governments for service delivery—and enabling a better, vertical system of checks and balances within the government machinery. So long as we are willing to abide by this, I have no doubt that we will be able to make progress.

There is already reason enough to be encouraged. In the few international forums that I’ve recently participated in on behalf of the NPC, Nepal is actually doing a lot better in terms of advancing the SDGs in comparison to many other nations. Our main hurdle, however, is financial: even though our national priorities are well aligned with the Global Goals, we are still looking at an enormous need for investment in order to achieve the targets.

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