KATHMANDU, Jan 22: Experts, policy makers and the representatives of the donor community have asked the government to set specific priority and be focused while implementing the development plans and strategies.

Even as they stressed for the need to effectively implement the policies and plans, they urged the government to pursue functional changes in the civil service rather than structural changes to enhance efficiency of the civil servants.

They were speaking at a pre-NDF (Nepal Development Forum) interaction organised by the World Bank on Tuesday.

The programme was the second among the series of preparatory programs organsied to receive feedback on government policies and incorporate it on commitment papers, which the government would be placing on the NDF meet slated from February 4-7.

The top-level government officials floated the government's policies related with civil society partnership, governance reform and decentralisation for discussion.

Presenting the policy paper on civil society partnership, Dr Nirmal Pandey, member of the National Planning Commission (NPC) said that the government is mulling to incorporate the civil society organisations (CSOs) including Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) under one umbrella with an aim to facilitate them through one window mechanism.

However, Gauri Pradhan of Nepal NGO Federation billed the government's policy to include NGOs in CSOs impractical. He viewed that the NGOs should be registered at the level of their operation and urged for curtailing the need to register NGOs twice at CDO office and Social Welfare Council (SWC).

Mukunda Prasad Aryal, Secretary at Ministry of General Administration (MoGA) presenting policy paper on governance reform said that the political commitment and internally driven changes and its implementation were required for the success of the governance reform program.

He emphasised that the Council for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) would be strengthened to combat corruption through three anti-corruption bills and a new CIAA Act.

However, experts viewed that the impasse seen between the political rule and civil service should be bridged. "Administrative skills and initial training should be made mandatory to enhance the efficiency of civil servants," said Dr Govinda Dhakal. He advocated for setting up reservations for women candidate with certain criteria to realise gender empowerment.

Stating that the political influence on recruitment of staff should be stopped, Radha Krishna Mainali of CPN-ML said that the recruitment in the regional offices and organisations should be done at local/regional level.

Meanwhile, speaking on decentralisation policy, experts said that focus should be laid on transfer of authority. It should transfer centralised authority to the local bodies to mobilise local resources.

Earlier, presenting policy paper on decentralisation Uday Raj Soti, Secretary at the Ministry of Local Development said that the government is taken decentralisation as the key factor to boost local development. Institutionalisation of long-term planning at local level, participation of local organisations, institutionalisation of local bodies in the development process are major aspects of the upcoming plan.