Kathmandu, August 5
A three-day “Youth-CSO Provincial Dialogue on Financial Governance” concluded in Kathmandu, bringing together youths, civil society representatives, and technical experts to discuss fiscal federalism, budget transparency, and citizen oversight in Bagmati Province.
The dialogue was organised by Project Abhaya through its Youth Fiscal Accountability Network (YFAN). It opened with a session introducing participants to the program’s national fiscal governance themes, led by Ishika Panta and Nipuna Neupane of Project Abhaya.
On the second day, Roshan Shrestha, Deputy Director General at the Department of Urban Development and Building Construction, led a session on fiscal federalism, the provincial budget cycle, and revenue generation.
This was followed by a session on identifying the root causes of local fiscal problems, facilitated by Ishika Panta, founder of Project Abhaya, and Nipuna Neupane. Participants worked in small groups to trace issues such as procurement delays and poor coordination between government levels back to their underlying causes.
Narayan Adhikari, Co-founder and South Asia Representative of Accountability Lab, then led a session helping participants narrow these issues down into a ranked list of top priorities for the province.
On the final day, Binod Bhattarai of Transparency International led a session on citizen oversight, public hearings, social audits, and the Right to Information (RTI) process.
Participants then practised applying the RTI process through a short exercise led by Rakshya Bam, a youth political activist and coordinator of the Nepal Gen Z Front. The dialogue closed with a session facilitated by Ishika Panta, in which participants turned the province’s prioritised issues into concrete advocacy goals for the short, medium, and long term. Findings from the dialogue will be included in Project Abhaya’s upcoming publication, “Provincial Perspectives on Financial Governance.” Project Abhaya, established in 2024, is a youth-led civil society organisation.
