Background:
The Constitution of Nepal has transformed a centralized unitary Nepal into the federal state by guaranteeing the devolution of power to the sub national governments. Nepal has now three tiers government with exclusive as well as concurrent powers and responsibilities as per the Constitution with the vision to ensure equality, prosperity and social justice. In the given context, PLGSP has been implemented with the goal to achieve fully functional, sustainable, inclusive and accountable provincial and local government throughout the nation.
In line with the vision of the constitution to promote inclusive and equity-based society with prosperity and social justice; Local Government Operation Act, 2074; and commitment made by the state at international level regarding gender equality and social inclusion, GESI mainstreaming should be adopted as one of the main strategies to end inequalities and discrimination. Hence, PLGSP has planned to support in formulating GESI Strategy of all 137 Local Governments and to get the document endorsed by the Councils. With the aim to prepare the pool of resource person who will be mobilized in Local Government to prepare GESI Strategy, a ToT program has been planned.
Objectives:
The main objective of ToT is to build common understanding about GESI issues in terms of Local Government and to come up with a framework for GESI Strategy of Local Government which will ensure that the policy, structures, plans and programs are responsive to the context specific issues of GESI.
The specific objectives of this program are:
- To maintain common understanding about the objectives and the expected outcomes of this activity;
- To inform participants about the modality and methodology of formulating GESI Strategy of Local Government.
- To enable participants to analyze local governments’ plan and budget from GRB
- To enhance knowledge and skill of participants about different aspects and steps of GESI Strategy and to capacitate to facilitate workshop for GESI strategy formulation
- To enhance clarity and skill to facilitate situation analysis and SWOT analysis
- To prepare a common framework of GESI Strategy of Local Government
Procedures:
The program was formally opened with the welcome remarks by the Team Leader/Local Governance Expert, Ms. Anita Guragain. Highlighting the goal and objectives of Province and Local Governance Support Program (PLGSP), she congratulated all the participants for being the part of this program and wished for the success of the program. She also emphasized the significant role of the resource person in facilitating to prepare GESI strategy. Following that GESI Expert Ms. Tshering Yodin Sherpa clarified about the objectives of ToT program and the modality for the formulation of GESI strategy.
The technical sessions were led by Dr. Anita Shrestha and Ms. Geeta Pradhan. Starting with conceptual clarity on Gender equality and Social Inclusion; and relevant laws, Acts, policy and plan including SDGs provisioned by the Government of Nepal, more focus was given on GESI strategy development process. Major components of GESI Strategy such as situation analysis, SWOT Analysis, Stakeholder Analysis, Vision, goal, objectives, strategic interventions, financial management, responsible agencies and their roles, monitoring, risk assumption and mitigation plan were discussed along with group exercises.
Account Officer from Province Training Centre also presented the tentative budget breakdown of this activity. Besides, ten members working group has been formed which includes 5 members from Local Government and 5 from freelancers. Equal number of women and men are in the group. This working group will directly involve in preparing a draft GESI Strategy framework along with indicators which will then be shared with MOFAGA/PLGSP/PCU, MoSD – Province 1 and GESI Experts from other province for feedbacks.
At the end, Mr. Abhay Kumar Gupta, Section Officer of Province Training Centre gave closing remarks. He highlighted that our success of formulating GESI Strategy depends on how Local Governments incorporate it in their annual planning and budget.
