CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background Local Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) are one of the important institutions for local development. They are playing significant role directly and indirectly in the development of local communities since long time back. These organizations work as catalyst for pooling resources both human and natural in a collective manner in order to fulfill local needs of local communities. The process of local development cannot accelerate without giving due attention to the viable local organizations. Rural development concerns basically with improving quality of life of the rural people. This implies the involvement of rural poor in the development process and requires participation of local people in decision-making process and implementation of decisions. The productivity and self-reliance of rural region can only be increased when the mobilization of local energies and use of local resources are made. It requires the organization of local people (United Nations Development Program [UNDP], 1979). In essence, rural development is a strategy designed to improve the economic and social life of the rural poor. It involves the flow of benefits of development to the poorest among those who seek a livelihood in rural areas. The poorest group may include small/peasant farmers, tenants and landless people (World Bank, 1975). In this regard, rural development is basically concerned with improving quality of life of the mass of the subsistence population residing in rural areas and making the process of their development self sustaining and self reliance (Lele, 1975). This goal, however, cannot be achieved without mobilizing the local resources, involving local people in overall development processes and institutionalizing the local people’s organizations. Therefore, development in the present context is perceived as a process by which the members of a society can increase their personal as well as institutional capacity to mobilize and manage local resources in order to produce sustainable and justly distributed benefits. 1 In developing world, the development paradigms have been changed one after another since the 1950s. The development strategy in the 1950s witnessed growth as natural and therefore, more or less inevitable process. Growth was seen mainly as a function of investment and large-scale industry. Harrod-Domar's model of capital-output ratio, Rostow's notion of 'leading sector', Hirschman's 'unbalanced growth' and Lewis's insistence on 'unlimited supplies of labour' and the importance of capital accumulation in the modern sector of the economy, for instance, provided theoretical explanation on urban industrial development (Economic and Social Commission on Asia and Pacific [ESCAP], 1979). The assumption inherent in these models was that huge investment in industrial sector promotes economic growth in rural areas and the overall benefits would then trickle down to the bottom layers of the society. However, these could not succeed largely as expected because accelerated per capita income alone in absolute term could not minimize the gap between poor and rich. In the 1970's, the rural development strategy shifted towards 'basic needs' or 'redistribution with growth' approach, which put emphasis on greater equity in benefit distribution of the national development efforts. As a result, the governments of the developing nations adopted this approach within national plans to raise the access of majority of poor people for the basic services. The provision of basic services however, remained a difficult task in those nations, mainly due to the lack of appropriate mechanism to absorb the given services and capacity to mobilize available resources efficiently. In addition, most of these countries misinterpreted the basic needs approach as a supply driven static programme and thus largely excusing themselves from the responsibility of generating additional employment and income-earning, on the one hand and from the responsibility of devolving authority for people's empowerment on the other (Nepal South Asia Centre [NSAC], 1998). The strategy designed for rural development in the early 1980s was "integrated rural development" programs advocated by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which emphasized a system approach to rural development planning. The program also greatly suffered from the lack of grass root people's own organization to absorb the services provided from the government structure, among many other problems. Failure of state led development efforts informed by top-down, modernization or technology transfer paradigms together with market oriented models led the whole 2 development discourse to a shift in new direction. Almost five decades of “development efforts” have driven the beneficiary communities towards even more dependency. Primarily the 'basic needs' or 'redistribution with growth' found to have highlighted the need for decentralized planning and administration instead of centralization. However, decentralization was perceived in terms of top-down transfer of authority within a governmental framework. The idea behind decentralization is that moving decision making closer to people will lead to better public decisions that reflect local priorities. It is only possible to involve community members in local development that have devolved authority, resources and decision making at spatial (areal) unit. In addition, they exert influence on government decision-making and gain collective bargaining power through their networks, association and federation (World Bank, 2002). The new development approach i.e. participatory decentralization thus has emerged in the last two decades particularly with the initiation of international agencies such as World Bank. Since the 1990s onwards, principle development strategy of most of the development agencies has been participatory through local organization building. Since then, these local organizations have been focusing the target groups who are to be benefited from the development. The development through local organization assumes that the efforts, resourcefulness, self-discipline and latent management skills of the rural poor can be mobilized and organized through their own organization (Uphoff, Esman & Krishna, 2001). This strategy greatly emphasizes on the rural people and their participation in every stage of planning processes and believes the designation of development programs from below rather than top, and by the people rather than for the people. For this reason, effective organization of the rural people at the local level needs to be promoted and strengthened to enhance the rural development activities. It can also put pressure on organizations to respond to locally identified priority needs, and solve local problems collectively through local resource mobilization and participation. In Nepal, planned development efforts began since the 1950s. Then after series of plans and development measures have been undertaken to develop the rural areas and raise the living condition of the rural people. Those plans and policies initiated to 3 institutionalize the local community through people's participation materialised only since the beginning of the 1980's. Especially after the demolition of Panchayati political system in 1990, the policy of institutional pluralism was introduced and then NGOs have become as a main partner of development (Gurung, 1998) in the sense that these can complement to or substitute for or compete with local government bodies. 1.2 Statement of the Problems Past development experiences in Asian developing countries including Nepal indicate an inadequate institutional framework as the major weakness on the effective implementation of rural development programmes (Jha, 1987). Reviewing the past development initiatives their outcomes, national planers and policy makers as well as concerned international agencies were motivated to seek out alternative or complementary development approaches capable of enhancing the quality of life of the vast majority of rural poor. Such growing realization pushed development practitioner towards participatory development through local organization building, which enable rural people to pool their resources for positive development actions, and embark upon a process of local people’s participation in benefit sharing, resource mobilization and awareness building. Moreover, these organizations make possible to use local indigenous knowledge and technology depending upon mutual trust and cooperation for the betterment of their life. Rural development is the most challenging task for the development planners in Nepal where almost 86 percent of the total population reside. Since the 1950's as stated above the country has been focusing on development of rural areas through periodic plans. But the achievements of the efforts have been quite unsatisfactory. Majority of the rural people still live in absolute poverty. Even the minimum basic needs such as food, clothes, shelter, health, education and safe drinking water have not been adequate. Poverty, unemployment, food shortage, low level of infrastructure and services, social exclusiveness, feudal thinking and low coverage of institutional mechanism are some of the major problems of rural Nepal (Dias, 1985). 4 However, the rural people of Nepal have been adopting development efforts for centuries through self- help and community efforts throughout the country. Large networks of trails, elaborated irrigation schemes, drinking water