The Public Administration Association Nepal (PAAN) in association with SPCBN/UNDP, organized a half day interaction program on “New Constitution: Transition Management” on March 14, 2012 at Hotel Everest. The participants included Government Secretaries, CA members, academics and representatives of civil society. The chief guest was the Chief Secretary, Mr. Madhav Prasad Ghimire. 25 government secretaries, 7 Joint Secretaries, 3 CA members from the task force, 10 academics and 15 civil society representatives, PAAN executives participated in the interaction program. This was one of the few occasions on which the issue of transition management and state restructuring were discussed by government secretaries and representatives of the CA with academics and civil society representatives. The resource persons included Mr. Jay Mukunda Khanal, Secretary, Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers Administrative Restructuring Unit, who presented a paper on “Government of Nepal Preparedness in Administrative Restructuring”; Mr. Vidhyadhar Mallik, Ex-Finance Secretary (Chairperson of PAAN) who made a presentation on “Cost of Federalism and Revenue & Expenditure Assignments”; Mr. Madhuraman Acharya, Ex-Secretary, who spoke on “International Experiments in Transition Management in Post Conflict Period”; and Dr. Bhola Chalise, ex-secretary, who made a presentation on “The Need for Transition Management Plan in Nepal”.
The CA members, Government secretaries and civil society representative were provided an opportunity to reflect on why transition management was important, challenges facing the public administration in the move from a unitary state to a federal state and the need for transitional provisions to be a part of the draft Constitution. The Chief Secretary updated the participants on the GoN plans to produce a “White Paper” on the federalization process. Rohan Edrisinha, SPCBN/UNDP and Jorn Sorensen, UNDP,(representing Mr. Robert Piper) also addressed the meeting.
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