Institutional Capacity Building of the actors

The inability of the municipality to construct a new landfill site provides insight to the fact that institutional capacity plays a crucial role in delivery of basic services to the public. There always has been an emphasis on the presence and the number of state institutions involved for a particular sector in Nepal rather than the quality and inter-relationship between the different institutions. For example, an institution can perform well, if they have strong presence in the sector through the implementation of good practices and good co-ordination with other institutions working in collaboration with them.

In the context of SWM in LSMC, there are a number of institutions like SWMTSC, LSMC and KMC involved in the process of designation, maintenance and construction of new landfill site.

SWMTSC is the government body providing the consultancy services to the municipalities all over Nepal. Similarly, municipalities are local bodies responsible for providing basic services, which includes sustainable waste management services. Co-ordination and cooperation between these institutions is necessary for the success of new projects for solid waste management.

These institutions especially LSMC as the focus of the study, need to develop qualities essential to increase institutional capacity like performance, adaptability and stability; so that it meet the needs of its citizen.

6.6.1 Performance: LSMC needs to increase its performance by developing, formulating and implementing policies that are more relevant to the situation (e.g., by better analyzing the current SWM situation and formulating policies that emphasize the role of community based organizations and NGOs as they are producing optimistic results in waste management). LSMC, can strengthen units like community development unit, and planning and development unit responsible for community mobilization and infrastructure development work so that they can respond better to the policies and work accordingly. Also, co-ordination and co-operation between the different sections, with a clear mandate of roles and responsibilities can help in producing effective outcomes. The construction work of the new landfill site which is 2 km away from the current site

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is going at a slow pace due to lack of clear distinction of roles and responsibilities among the responsible bodies like SWMTSC and the municipality. In this situation co-ordination between the responsible bodies along with the other stakeholders including the locals is necessary so that future problems related to landfill site can be avoided.

6.6.2 Adaptability: Institutional adaptability is a feature required in institutions so that they can continuously progress and redefine themselves in response to the changing veracities. Investment in innovations and technologies in order to produce better results and timely review of current policy and programs to figure out what works and what doesn’t is a measure of increased adaptability. In the context of Nepal, this quality has a greater significance, as the country is going through the process of transition and there is a continuous change of government. In such scenario, government institutions like LSMC are required to develop capacity that help them adapt to the changing conditions. LSMC can deal with the issue of lack of sufficient human resources by increasing the capacity of the staff by providing trainings including development of policies that fits the need of the changing time. The municipality is currently struggling to collect waste in an efficient manner due to lack of human resources in addition to lack of vehicles. In this situation capacity building of existing human resources by provision of proper trainings and equipment can work in their favor. On the other hand, it can adapt the concept of multi-level governance in its strategies and policies to recognize the contribution of all the formal and informal service providers present in the SWM system. So that non-state actors get recognition, expand their activities and support the municipality. Therefore,collaboration between all the stakeholders in the municipality becomes possible, leading to better SWM services to the public.

6.6.3 Stability: It is a feature that is required in institutions so that they can perform in the long run integrating good practices and policies. It is evident that SWM practices in LSMC are not always performed according to the standard procedures and regulations; there are deviations repeatedly.

In case of formalization of collaboration with private actors, legalization of tariff and waste handling and disposal practices. Not much has been done by other institutions including LSMC concerning the environmental issues of landfill site, whereas it is clearly mentioned in SWM technical guideline. On the other hand, no measures have been initiated to improve transparency and accountability of LSMC. Particularly in relation to the variable performance in SWM between

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the government service providers. This may be due to the influence of political change in the state leading to change in institutional leadership in government bodies whereas private actors are not affected by this sudden change. These qualities are responsible for ensuring that the available assets and resources are used as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Experiences during the field work provides evidence that municipality has not been able to keep proper documentation of various waste management activities. A lot of ambiguities existed about the actual amount of waste generated and collected in the municipality. Records were kept manually in written form which can be damaged easily by water or fire, no electronic record keeping system existed in the municipality. While the environment section, handling the SWM activities was short staffed, numerous activities were performed by the same person.

Thus, for the municipality to progress further and provide better services needs to have a proper documentation and record keeping system, increment in the competency of its staff ,especially hiring people with skill required for solid waste management, development of a knowledge-sharing mechanism to share good practices of other municipalities, designing and implementing participation mechanism for private actors formally into the SWM and developing information management system to ensure it simplifies the decision-making process. As municipality is an institution at local level and a key system on which the state relies to fulfil its obligations towards its citizens (Resilience, 2011).

Looking at the situation from macro level in national perspective, for these institutions to function effectively and meet up the public expectation, the state must also give priority to these institutions irrespective of the fact which party is ruling the government. The state, in the current context Government of Nepal must focus on strengthening the local governments and local bodies responsible for delivering basic social services. Literature from other developing countries also point out that formulation, implementation along with monitoring and evaluation of policies and programs is critical for the success of any development initiative(DES,2013). Achievement of this objective fundamentally relies on the continuous availability of experienced and well-trained staff in key government institutions and government bodies such as ministries of finance, planning and development (Nelson, 1990) as cited in (Leftwich,1993).

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