Following our ongoing activities for the development of Comprehensive Plan (CP) of five municipalities-Damak, Bhimeshwor, Tansen, Waling & Tikapur, we have also developed a Working Procedure (Karyabidhi) to serve as a guideline for the development of local government comprehensive plans. This guideline will facilitate municipalities to conduct development activities in the immediate timeline, and establish mean and way for amending their comprehensive plan in the future. It further reinforces institutionalization process for the establishment of various citizen centric approaches and mechanisms during the comprehensive plan development.

This guideline is a legal document and can also be adopted as a local act, should the municipalities choose to do so in the future. COMMITTED seeks to provide this model for replication and endorsement for other municipalities seeking to develop their comprehensive plans. The key objectives of the guideline are to establish the following:

• Provide legal basis for the plan
• Establish citizen centric structures and process
• Ensure maximum citizen participation
• Formulate mechanism to develop the plan
• Define rights and responsibilities of the mechanism, key actors including citizens
• Manage issues and priorities
• Establish process for plan implementation and amendment

The drafted document was sent to all five municipalities for review and comments and with endorsement from the Plan Development Steering Committee, this document has now been endorsed and adopted by the Municipal Executive Bodies of four municipalities. Because of COVID-19 pandemic and the nationwide lockdown, Damak Municipality was not able to endorse the working procedure. The municipality will review and endorse it as soon as the country gets back to normalcy.

This document was developed with the support from our EnLoG-SDEG project funding partner ‘The Asia Foundation (TAF)’ and its Subnational Governance Program partner ‘Public Policy Pathshala’.