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VII. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
[ VII-A | VII-B | VII-C |VII-D ]
A. Background
In recent years, a great deal of consideration has been given to environmental issues, a number of institutions and organizations have been created and many legislative measures have been introduced in Nepal. At the same time, a significant number of people have acquired skills and expertise in many areas related to the environment. However, most of those actions have been carried out on a piecemeal and ad hoc basis from the limited perspective of the various agencies of the government, with very little coordination and integration and with much less effort put into monitoring and evaluation.
A brief review of the past efforts and exercises indicates the areas to which further efforts need to be directed, together with consolidation of the progress already made, in order to ensure a judicious balance between economic development and environmental protection on a sustainable basis. In the coming years, it will be necessary to evolve an institutional set-up both at the central and the local levels to enable a coordinated and integrated approach to be made to policy articulation and programme implementation. Despite the existence of EPC, with its high-level profile under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister, and the Ministry of Population and Environment, there is still a need to establish institutional linkages between the Ministry of Population and Environment and other ministries concerned with environmental matters, between ministries and their departments and agencies, and between central-level agencies and local-level development agencies. Such linkages need to be construct ed in a workable fashion to cover policy formulation and programme implementation, monitoring and evaluation, with a clear demarcation of authority, responsibilities and operational modalities. Once such institutional linkages and operational modalities have been established, they will facilitate the integration of environmental policies into the overall national development policies as well as resolve conflicts of interests among the various government agencies.
In view of the current situation, for the next few years Nepal should follow the practical and pragmatic strategy of a two-pronged consolidation and coordination along the lines described in the following sections.
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