Page 40 - voice-international-oct2022

Nepal

Meaningful inclusion demands constant

investment, but female local officials have

barely got it

T he 22

years

Saraswati old
Nepali is the
mother of two
kids and lives
approximately
five hours’
drive (and five
hours walk)
away from the
headquarter
of Karnali
Province,
Surkhet—a
place that paid
the heaviest of
prices in the
10 year-long
armed conflict from 1996-2006. Her first son is eight in Surkhet for a one and half day training on LG
years old, and her second son is four and half years system and processes. It is not an overstatement
old, almost as old as her term of office as a ward to assert the same for the majority female LG
member in Shiwalaya Rural Municipality (RM) of representatives around the country, mostly those
Karnali Province. who were fielded for the posts of ward members,
Saraswati did not go for campaigning before the positions with relatively lesser leadership roles.
elections. She didn’t even ask for an election ticket. For Lalsara B.K., and her two friends, it was the
All the work was done by her family members, first time they visited Surkhet. This, in many ways,
especially her husband, who is a teacher. Saraswati is symbolic of the access female representatives
assumes, it is because of his influence she got of rural LGs have to state resources, to decisions
the ticket to fight the election. After four and half on distribution of those resources, to information,
years she now understands fully that it was rather and to opportunities and exposure. It is as if the
because of the reservation for Dalit women in the geographical distance translates almost quite
Ward Committee of local governments (LGs) that literally in their cases adding up multiple barriers in
she got the ticket. exercising their agency to participate meaningfully
Similar was the case with six other female LG in the governance process.
representatives of Shiwalaya RM who gathered

40 | VoICE International | October 2022