[rts] (Fwd) Involvement of Various Stakeholders in Rural Transport S

[econf-ifrtd at gn.apc.org]

Date sent:      	Wed, 11 Oct 2000 17:36:15 +0530
From:           	"Rajendra Aryal" <rajendra.aryal at undp.org>
To:             	econf-ifrtd at gn.apc.org
Subject:        	Involvement of Various Stakeholders in Rural Transport System

I am Rajendra Aryal, presently working as Programme Officer for the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) in Nepal. UNCDF is a special fund managed by UNDP for investment in local development giving especial focus to the socio-economic infrastructures.

Involvment of various stakeholders is a key factor towards the sustainability of the projects in the developing world. If I see from the perspectives of rural road network developing in least developed country like Nepal, this is indeed a major entry point towards the bottom-up approach. Rural 
transport infrastructure projects are planned mostly with an ultimate objectiove of socio-economic development and poverty alleviation. Participation has become a key word in this context not only for planning, but also for implementation, and operation and maintenance. Participation gives an 
effective way of mobilization of resources and a strong sense of ownership among the very people who are the eventual users of the rural transport infrastructure. Such a process has been
always highly valued by the local users and thus has a sort of profound ripple effect.

The stakeholders' chart has been prepared giving a close look at all the possible actors. Indeed, almost all of the stakeholders seem important to me. However, best possible way of optimizing them is a difficult task, right from planning to the implementation as well as to the sustainable 
operation and management. What I feel very important is the "Users" and they always are the very people. The approach thus should be very much "people-centred". In order to link and involve all the relevant stakeholders in the whole process, I suggest a way to optimally involve different 
stakeholders. This is very much based in the experience we have ghathered in Nepal on rural road network planning and development.

In order to reach the overall goal of socio-economic development and poverty alleviation, several intermediate steps should be considered:

1. One of the driving forces behind must be to facilitate agricultural or industrial development of the rural area.
2. The process of involvement of the stakeholders should be logical, systematic and transparent.
3. Very importantly, there should be a clear demarcation of the roles and responsibilities of the stakeholders. With this I would like to group the stakeholders as follows:

a) Legislative: This group shall be the decision-makers. These may include Ministry of Transport and its allies, National Planning Commission, Ministry of Rural Development, etc. It should be noted that the role of this group should be policy development, and guidance to the Executive group and 
decision-making.

b) Executive: This shall be a complementary body consisting of representatives of the government's line agencies and civil servants present in the are representing various sectors. Since this group shall have experst from different relevant fields, this group shall carry out the planning and 
provide options to the legislative group to aid its decision making. Again, this shall purely have an executing function so that there is no conflict of interest with the former group. NGOs, contractors, consulting firms, transport enterpreneurs, etc., shall be involved in this group. This group 
shall also be responsible for the implementation, operation and management of the projects.

c) Judiciary: The judiciary body shall ensure lawful planning and implementation and resolve conflicts as needed. Police can play an important role in it as well. Additionally, I feel the judiciary body should also be added to the list of the stakeholders.

d) Financing: Ministry of Finance, bilateral and multilateral donors, banks and credit institutions shall come under this category. This group shall have to closely work with the legislative and executive body.

The most important factor is, all the relevant stakeholders should participate. This is a challenge, which needs a lot of efforts. Somebody thus should be on the driving seat  to facililate the whole process. I would propose the locally elected government body as the owner to chair the 
Legislative group and own the project.

These are some of the thoughts I would like to put into the discussion. Comments/suggestions are welcome.

With warm regards.