Kathmandu: Representatives from all three tiers of government, development partners, and experts gathered at the Nepal Administrative Staff College for a critical Policy Dialogue on Intergovernmental Relations (IGR) and Own Source Revenue (OSR).
Addressing the inaugural session, UNDP Nepal Resident Representative Kyoko Yokosuka said the next phase of federalism would require five strategic shifts: from coordination to implementation, from unclear interfaces to functional cooperation, and from fiscal dependence to stronger fiscal capability. Yokosuka also called for a shift from fragmented systems to interoperability and from pilots to government-owned systems at scale.
Matthias Meier, Deputy Head of Mission at the Embassy of Switzerland, shared valuable lessons from Switzerland’s federal experience on how provincial and local governments can exercise meaningful political and fiscal autonomy.
Joint-Secretary at the Ministry of Land Management, Cooperatives, Federal Affairs and General Administration (MoLMCFAGM) Dilaram Panthi stressed the role of these discussions in building trust and called for greater clarity on horizontal and vertical differences so future reforms can respond to varying local contexts.
Through the Provincial and Local Governance Strengthening Programme (PLGSP), and in partnership with MoLMCFAGA, the European Union, Norway, and Switzerland, UNDP have been working to build trust, strengthen fiscal autonomy, and ensure sustainable governance across Nepal.
