Dr. Shankar Shrestha (Executive Director, NDRI) was invited to the” Dissemination Workshop on Landscape Governance Assessment in Nepal” by the World Bank on 27 June 2023 held at the World Bank Office in Durbarmarg, Kathmandu, Nepal.
Landscape governance is the management of natural resources and development activities through policies, institutions, and processes involving multiple stakeholders. The World Bank, in collaboration with the federal and provincial partners, has completed a landscape governance assessment and is developing a decision-support tool to enhance the good governance process to understand the state of existing landscape governance. This assessment and decision support tool aims to strengthen landscape governance in Nepal while identifying gaps within landscape management.

In this context, the objective of the dissemination workshop was to share findings from the landscape governance assessment in Nepal and discuss pathways for action with the invited participants representing non-governmental organizations, community-based organizations, and right-based organizations in Nepal. The landscape governance assessment applied ten major indicators (Agency coordination, Policies and laws, Multistakeholder participation, Tenure security, Landscape focus, Government administration, Political economy, Rule of law, Sustainable production, and
Resilience of landscapes) and thirty sub-indicators, and covered a wide range of
stakeholders’ perceptions, ranging from government policymakers to private entrepreneurs. Assessment results revealed that the policy formulation process requires further consultations, particularly at the local level. Also, a number of policy contradictions and jurisdictional overlaps continue to exist among different authorities, limiting the effective management 1 of landscapes and natural resources.