Further Dissecting the Role of Citizen Participation in Strengthening Accountability of Local Governments in Nepal

This study assesses the impacts of citizen participation on strengthening the accountability systems of local government in Nepal. Based on qualitative analysis using multiple set of data, this study concludes that assessing the impacts of citizen participation appears to be rather challenging, as the inferences drawn are not conclusive. By and large, citizen participation mostly shows positive effects on enhancing transparency, strengthening monitoring systems, improving responsiveness, and controlling corruption risks, and, thus, strengthening local accountability. Yet, there appear some cases that show sometimes no such effects or negative effects of participation on achieving those attributes. The impacts of participation outcomes need to be judged by taking into account of such structural factors including empowered and mobilized citizens and the activeness and capacity of civic organizations to influence the responsiveness behavior of decision-makers