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Governance in the Federations and Civil Society Organizations; Improving Representation,
Legitimacy, Transparency and Synergy: Lessons from Nepal
Hansh Raj Joshi, E-mail: hansh.joshi@care.org, joshihanshu@gmail.com
Abstract:
The ability of Federations and other Nepali civil society organizations (CSOs) to constructively engage
with government and stakeholders are limited both by technical and organizational capacities. Civil
society support project of CARE International in Nepal has introduced a dialogue tool to improve
organizational capacities of federations and other CSOs in the areas of representation and inclusion,
legitimacy, transparency and synergy to improve the overall governance, claiming and service delivery
capacity. Dialogue tool, which is one of the tools of outcome mapping methodology, tracks changes in
behavior of the actors (partners) with whom it directly engages and wants to influence. CARE Nepal and
its partners have agreed upon a set of indicators in above mentioned areas on which both are interested
to bring changes. These indicators known as progress markers which are qualitative in nature and set in
the form of progressive steps as expect to see, like to see and love to see which carries early positive
response, active engagement and deeper transformation respectively towards the ideal behaviour of an
actor.
CARE Nepal has been supporting the execution of jointly developed plan which was prepared to meet
milestones and dream through direct grant, training and mentoring. Likewise, periodic updates on
progress markers was jointly reviewed and discussed which has brought encouraging preliminary
results. Federations and other partners are progressing in terms of increasing inclusion at all level,
adopting tools and techniques to promote transparency to increase acceptance and bringing synergy. The
current political environment has compelled Nepali non government organizations to be more inclusive
although this is existed as "ceremonial" in most cases. Meaningful participation of women, dalits and
excluded group is challenged by both internal and external factors. Internal factors like perception of
leadership that women cannot participate because of their restricted roles, level of knowledge to
participate and provide strategic inputs and also challenge remains in internalizing and sustaining the
achievements as good governance is still a donor-backed issue. The leadership paradigm shifted from
"friends and families" to more inclusive and legitimate entity.
Importance and priority on governance varies for different donors, which caused Nepali federations and
CSOs to compromise on their internal governance and accommodate as per donors interest. Similarly,
government has focused more on regulation than on facilitation which compelled them to take protection
from political leadership to create spaces to be engaged with government.
Introduction
Nepal is a diverse country in terms of geography, ethnicity, language, religion, and caste. For most of its
history, Nepal was governed by a series of hereditary rulers. In 1990 a popular uprising, ushered in a
new period of political freedom. Before the restoration of democracy in 1990, there were only a few
CSOs operating in Nepal with a main focus on service delivery. After restoration of democracy, there
has been a phenomenal growth of CSOs in Nepal. The number has reached to 39,763 registered CSOs in
2015 (Social Welfare council list of registered NGOs 2072).
The recently promulgated Constitution of Nepal in 2015 has guaranteed the freedoms of association,
assembly, and speech, as well as respect for human rights. Under “policies regarding social justice and
inclusion”, the government may involve NGOs and INGOs in the areas of national needs and priority by
making the investment and role of such organizations accountable and transparent. In Nepal, there is

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often a distinction between NGOs (about half of which are registered in Kathmandu), loosely constituted
people’s federations and formal or informal community based organizations. In this analysis, these all
are broadly termed CSOs.
While the unprecedented growth of federations and CSOs because of their emergence as prominent
actors in development arena can be seen as a very positive trend, however there are serious issues with
internal governance, opportunism (monetary gain agendas) and politicization around party political.
This results in a highly fragmented civil society landscape.
In most of the cases, CSOs continue to be heavily dependent on external funding which affects the
institutional governance and striving towards the vision and CSOs has inclined to the donor agencies
rather than to their constituencies where they ought to be (DANIDA, 2013)
A recent study on CSO sustainability has categorized Nepalese CSOs and suggests the government has
recognized the contributions of CSOs in strengthening democracy and providing services. Despite these
characters, the report has pointed out that Nepalese CSOs lack internal democracy, transparency and
accountability. These are critical areas for the development of Nepalese CSOs. (GoGo, 2014). Most
CSOs are family and friends-based. As a result, CSOs tend to have poor governance practices and lack
clear divisions of responsibilities between the board of directors and the management. Likewise, the
CSOs dependency on the external funding and on official aid with many provisional clauses has
challenged the legitimacy. The legitimacy of the CSOs is no more likely to be based on values of
voluntarism and altruism but on the contract with official aid agencies. (Saur and Sinha, 2006)
Materials and Methods
CARE Nepal supported its partners; National Farmer Groups Federation (NFGF) and Community Self
Reliance Center (CSRC) to improve their governance, administrative and financial capacities. The
objectives of the support were to make partner CSOs more legitimate and transparent to their
constituencies and to promote multi-layered accountability. Both NFGF and CSRC are registered
Nepalese CSOs However NFGF is a members-based farmers federation.
The project introduced a dialogue tool to improve governance capacities of these organizations in the
areas of representation and inclusion, legitimacy, transparency and synergy (RILTAS) set in the
dialogue tool which is one of the tools of outcome mapping methodology, which tracks changes in the
behavior of the actors (partners). CARE Nepal and partners agreed upon a set of indicators in above
mentioned areas on which CARE Nepal and partners were interested to bring changes. These indicators
are known as progress markers in the outcome mapping system which are set in the form of progressive
steps as expect to see, like to see and love to see. This mapping promotes the multilayerd i.e upward to
the donors and vertical to the boundary partners and impact groups accountability as partners show
progressive change.
Results and discussions
Representation and inclusion: CARE Nepal partners had shown remarkable progress on representation
and inclusion. A gradual change was observed in CSRC. The number of female and marginalized people
had increased in the staff structure including senior level positions. CSRC's main working theme is land
and agrarian rights for the landless and tenants. CSRC has given specific priority to women's access and
control over land as an important agenda in the land and agrarian rights movement. This is a result of
meaningful representation of dalit (the so-called untouchables) and females in the executive committee
of CSRC. These groups, which are traditionally marginalized and excluded hold senior level positions
and are influential in decision making processes.

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With the support from CARE Nepal, NFGF had formulated human resource mobilization guideline,
gender equality and social inclusion policy, zero tolerance policy and federation mobilization guidelines.
These policies are explicitly focused on mainstreaming gender equality and social inclusion at all levels
of the federation. With the execution of gender equality and social inclusion policy on board, the
inclusion of women and socially excluded communities has been significantly increased. Currently,
women constitute 31% at central committee of NFGF and 45% in the staff's structure with some key
positions.
Legitimacy: Among others, legitimacy includes acceptance of entity by the stakeholders. The partners
had shown remarkable progress on legitimacy. CSRC’s acceptance by government and other
stakeholders as a resource organization on land rights and non-violent movement is widely established.
The government has sought inputs and suggestions from partner CSOs on different policies and acts.
CSRC is deeply rooted at the grass root to be a legitimate facilitator for the rights of landless and tenants
over productive resources. Despite in the forming stage, NFGF’s acceptance as a "true" farmer's
federation has been increasing. However, there are challenges on legitimacy from political party's
farmer’s wings and development-NGOs supported farmer’s groups.
Transparency: There are observable changes in the transparency level of the partners. Partners have
established a formal feedback and complain handling mechanism to promote transparency. Both CSO
partners are organizing social audit at different levels to ensure transparency and accountability in their
works. Both partners are strived to become more transparent and accountable by institutionalizing public
audit practices.
Synergy: CSRC was proactively engaged with the Constituent Assembly members during the
constitution making process to advocate on the land and agrarian agenda and worked closely with the
Government of Nepal during the preparation of national land policy. It is affiliated in different national
and internal network. It was consulted by the government and non government organizations as resource
organization on land. NFGF had also collaborated with other national and international organizations
including the Government of Nepal. It continuously engaged with the government and other likeminded
organizations to advocate on farmers agenda and also to collaborate. NFGF had jointly prepared the
advocacy plan with other CSOs and played a lead role in its execution. NFGF had mobilized the
government resource in different agriculture activities at the district and VDC level.
Acknowledgement
The author is Gender and Partners Capacity Building Specialist at CARE Nepal and would like to
acknowledge the financial and technical support of DANIDA through CARE Denmark and CARE
Nepal to implement the Civil Society Support Project on Right to Food.
References
Saur, D. Hota, B.L and Sinha, H. 2006 "Non Governmental Organizations in Rural Development" In
M.C Behara (ed) Globalizing Rural Development: Competing Paradigms and Emerging Realities. New
Delhi: Sage Publication.
CSO sustainability scores for Nepal, 2014. USAID CSO sustainability index report, feburary 2016
Good Governance Foundation Press release _CSO-SI-2014
CIVICUS civil society index report for Nepal 2006,
Civil Society Report, 2013, Danida