Rajendra P Sharma

Over the last few decades, Nepal in general and Kathmandu Valley in particular has witnessed a remarkable change in land use due to rapid growth of the population. The urban growth among the municipal towns varies greatly. The Kathmandu Valley had 67 per cent agricultural land in 1971 that declined to 14 per cent in 2001, whilst residential-cum-commercial use increased from 14 per cent to 61 percent during the same years. The distribution of urban areas is relatively thin over the mountains and hills due to rugged terrain and scattered settlements. Out of 100 municipalities, most are in the Terai and the hills with very few in the mountains. Apart from the municipalities, there are over 3,500 small towns across the country. The population also varies greatly by municipalities; Kathmandu metropolis and four other sub-metropolises accommodate 39 per cent of the total urban population, other 35 municipalities accommodate about 27 per cent and the other small municipalities lodge the rest. Over the last decades, the larger cities have been expanded rapidly and haphazardly and urban-bound migration has gone up significantly putting an additional pressure on poor urban infrastructure, services and limited land for settlement. Rapid urbanization coupled with inadequate government response to the urban needs has led to the poor service in the towns. The fundamental feature of the municipalities can be described as ‘urban villages’.

Little efforts
Planned development efforts in Nepal started from the late 1950s. The country till now has experienced ten national development plans and two subsequent interim plans. Since the first plan (1956-61), the development strategy has always been to increase gross domestic product and create infrastructure necessary for development and to alleviate poverty. Throughout these planning periods, the rural area has always received top priority in development policies and programs and particularly the tenth plan adopted poverty reduction strategy, especially to address the problems of the poor. Despite these varieties of planning efforts there is a poor performance in achieving expected results; a wide gap remains between a few rich people and the majority of poor, who have been left out of the development process. This has occurred mainly due to the mismatch between development programmes and ground realities, limited resources, among many. Throughout the six decades of planned development efforts, urban development has been overlooked.

Opportunities
Urban development basically concerns two fundamental components of peaceful living conditions of the urban dwellers. Safe and conducive working environment, entertainment and life without fear and harm and equal access for all citizens to the services and facilities. This also means to be free from ethnic, religious or gender discrimination. Since urban centers are growth and employment hubs, they influence the surrounding areas by attracting people, goods and capital. Thus, the flow of goods, workforce, capital and information describes the degree of relationship between the urban and surrounding rural centers. Flows of goods, raw materials and people as workforce can be considered as ‘inputs’ to contribute to urban development whilst infrastructure, facilities, and services available in the urban areas facilitate the ‘outputs’ and strengthen linkages. The potential of urban development is determined by the facilities and services available at the centers, because the urban areas are also considered as centers of knowledge, innovation and technology. In fact, making urban areas dynamic focal points in terms of resource potentials and hubs of investment may have spread effects over the entire region and also enhance national growth and development. Similarly, urban centers are also known as growth centers and a proxy indicator for both local and national development. They provide facilities and services for the development of one’s own area and the surroundings. A strong economic base of the urban area leads to surplus production of goods and services in terms of commercial, industrial, agricultural and other activities. The number, size and type of facilities and urban services determine the level of development.

Challenges
The major challenges in urban development are governance, inclusivity and participatory sustainable development with the optimum exploitation of the limited resources. In the changed socio-political context, mmunicipalities are local government units; they need to be centres of economic development but the pace of development is slow and administrative function is the priority. The governance is also weak due to the lack of human and financial resources for infrastructure development and service delivery. Municipal governments are directed by two line ministries - Ministry of Local Development and Ministry of Physical Planning and Works. The Kathmandu Valley Town Development Committee and Town Development Fund are other government agencies involved in municipal physical development in case of Kathmandu. Provision of infrastructure in urban areas has been largely driven by central government such as the Department of Roads, Water Supply and Sewerage, Solid Waste, Telephone, and Electricity. Besides these, there are several other agencies including non-government, international agencies, civil society and user groups involved in urban development. Since urban government has to interface with all these agencies, the main challenge is ‘coordination’. In the changed political context, the municipal government requires to redefine its roles and responsibilities with broader perspectives that should incorporate better service provision and employment generation. Further, the municipality is to facilitate people-based, transparent and output oriented development activities propped up by user-friendly participatory monitoring and evaluation system.

The urban service delivery institutions are engrossed in the conservative feudal system and are not poor-oriented. Therefore, mechanisms should be set up to empower the urban dwellers in general and civil societies in particular and to impart awareness among the urban service delivery authorities. The lack of financial resources is a critical constraint and challenge. The revenue structure of the municipalities indicates that they depend largely on Local Development Fee (LDF) and grants, which means they are weak in mobilizing local revenue. LDF is against the spirit of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and therefore, it should be abolished. But, if LDF is abolished, municipalities may face further financial crisis. The seventh Goal of the Millennium Development Goals calls for a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020. In order to achieve this target, it is important to grant security of tenure, investing more in housing. These challenges are becoming more complex due to increased in-migrants.

On the other hand, in most cases, greenery, open spaces and playgrounds in the urban areas have been encroached by street vendors, squatters and used as residence and market-places due to poor governance and management. The public-private partnership for socio-economic development initiatives and service delivery is a far cry. Therefore, a fundamental challenge is to change the traditional, complex bureaucratic and feudal governance that has existed for decades which demands a revolutionary step. Indeed, the capability of urban government for good governance is inadequate and there is a big resource gap. The municipal efforts are often to meet quantity coverage; the quality standard is far behind. In order to meet the current need and MDG goals by 2015, the government’s investment needs to rise several folds. There is a lack of competence and commitment in municipal government for the adoption of holistic approach to manage urban areas. Therefore, challenges ahead are the lack of fiscal power, adoption of customer friendly attitude and enforcement of existing laws to develop urban schemes and manage urban affairs.

Way forward
Urban areas are favourable for development interventions supported by large population size, basic infrastructure and accessibilities. Urban agencies including municipality should be aware of and convinced with the inclusive development and participatory approaches and modalities should be clear for all the collaborative partners for the management of urban affairs. If the needy groups of people are involved in the programmes, they will be able to manage the local problems. The urban government should conceive this concept and include in its policies, strategies and plan so that the entire planning and implementation system comes into practice that will help to achieve the overall goal of urban development. For this, a strong commitment, vision and collaboration among all walks of life and society, more importantly the urban governments, is essential.

Further, public-private partnership for socio-economic development and service delivery is important for making municipal government competent, committed and customer friendly. Therefore, shifting the paradigm from most neglected to most selected area for development, a better management of urban affairs with a better provision of infrastructure, facilities and urban governance with the devolution of fiscal power is an urgent need. Furthermore, urban management should be concerned in the fundamental components of safe, just, and better management by bringing municipal governments out of the box from the traditional, complex, bureaucratic and feudal governance system to simple, transparent and responsible governance system. A better management of urban affairs in Nepal is possible if the municipal governments take steps towards strengthening urban governance backed by participation, empowerment, urban database and participatory approaches in municipal planning and governance system.

source: Sharma, Rajendra(2011),"Urban authorities need to come out Of the Box", Rising Nepal, 4 September 2011