“Enhancing administrative service delivery practices of local government: Experiences from Nepal”

This study aims to examine the administrative service delivery practices within the local government of Nepal and explore the intricate perceptions of the interplay be-tween governance, service delivery, and citizens. The objectives include understanding the contextual elements that shape states, addressing concerns of developing nations, emphasizing service delivery, prioritizing citizen viewpoints, and tackling governance issues. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach grounded on post-positivism, the study employs purposeful sampling to select rural municipalities in Nepal. Data collection involves a quantitative institutional survey to assess the current state of public administrative services, with survey respondents comprising service providers and citizens. The respondents reported higher levels of satisfaction with the efficiency, timeliness, and resource availability of administrative services. However, the study also revealed gaps and disparities in the knowledge and perceptions of administrative practices and governance among different respondent groups and ecological regions. Emphasizing the significant advantages of collaboration, decentralization, people-centric development, and meaningful engagement, the study highlights the need for further research and policy interventions to enhance public service delivery and governance of local government in Nepal.


INTRODUCTION
The Nepalese local government administrative service delivery has improved recently.The practices ensure local citizens have access to essential services and government functions.Complex historical, global, and sociopolitical influences shaped modern statehood.Centralization, territorial dominance, and diplomacy have had major impacts on regional trends.Political awareness, urbanization, globalization, and social complexity affect state dynamics and sovereignty in developing countries.Decentralization was introduced to improve public services by addressing centralized issues and rising citizen demands.Government-society-individual relations depend on satisfaction, trust, and reliability, whereas governments build trust by providing efficient local services to meet citizens' needs.

LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES
Nepal's local governments have been introduced since the 2017 election.Understanding the complex relationships between governance, service delivery, and individual perspectives is crucial to shed light on Nepalese local government organizations' efficiency and trustworthiness.Modern European states had monopolies, territorial dominance, and diplomatic systems (Loughlin, 2004).Urbanization and globalization expanded access to knowledge, resulting in more diverse demands from individuals (Hutahaean & Pasaribu, 2021).
To tackle centralized service delivery challenges and meet people's demands for decentralized services like administrative ones (e.g., citizenship certificates, land certificates, driver's licenses) and essential goods and services (food distribution, financial services, utilities), the decentralization principle was implemented (Sadat & Andika, 2022).This approach also encompasses public amenities, such as education, healthcare, and transportation.Treisman (2007) stresses that the government must prioritize affordable, equitable access to services for all, regardless of socio-economic or cultural factors.Wahyurudhanto (2020) identifies different forms of public service delivery, including interactions, counters, procedures, and information functions, categorized as direct, indirect, individual, and collective.Local governments employ diverse communication methods to inform the public about service delivery.
Regarding the local administration, UNDP (2000) introduced four fundamental forms of public services: direct, privatization, decentralization, and alternative services.Municipal governments worldwide have adopted these approaches.However, achieving improved service delivery hinges on suitable legal frameworks, qualified human resources, financial resources, provider accountability, transparency, public access to infor-mation, and effective collaboration between central and local governments (Ekpo, 2008).
Central government support is crucial for local governments to strengthen their systems.This study is conducted in the ecological belts of Koshi Province, assessing regulatory public administrative services, service receiver satisfaction, and good governance practices.The analysis aims to explore modern state development, encompassing both its historical and contemporary aspects.It seeks to uncover the challenges faced by emerging nations as they navigate the intricate realm of citizens' aspirations.Moreover, the study recognizes the pivotal significance of efficient public service delivery and underscores the importance of collaborative interactions among different levels of government.This study elaborates on the following hypotheses: H1: There is a positive correlation between citizen perceptions of local government performance and the quality of governance and service delivery in Nepal.
H2: Enhancements in governance and service delivery practices positively affect citizen perceptions in Nepal.
H3: Psychological, social, and institutional factors significantly contribute to the impact of citizen perceptions on public trust and satisfaction in Nepal's government-administration relationship.

METHODOLOGY
The research design primarily adopts a quantitative approach, utilizing an institutional survey to systematically assess the current state of the institutional environment responsible for public administrative services in selected rural municipalities of Nepal.Purposeful sampling is employed to select study areas, ensuring representation from diverse ecological regions.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The respondents' social and demographic traits are divided into categories based on their gender, age group, caste or ethnicity, and level of education.The majority of participants, 63.5%, were service recipients, followed by office personnel, 19.8%, and village assembly members, 16.7%.Age, which may be broadly divided into younger (those under 30 years old) and mature (those beyond 30 years old), is a critical component in defining a person's physical and mental health.The percentage of Janajati and Dalit legislators, together with other groups, makes up close to 60%.The Constitution of Nepal (Nepal Law Commission, 2015), which allows the populace to choose their local representative, is to thank for the devolution of political power to the local level and for this representation.However, the contemporary bureaucracy is dominated by favored caste groups.As per the Asian Development Bank, the dominant group maintained its control over the bureaucracy of Nepal due to their proficiency in Nepalese, ease of access to and influence over those who dominate governance structures, and their ability to influence those individuals (Pradhan & Shrestha, 2005).
Local government stakeholders' education affects their performance, service delivery, and critical awareness.The definition of literacy used in this study was taken from CBS and relates to the capacity for comprehending reading and writing as well as basic mathematical computations (CBS, 2011).

Administrative services and local government
Based on respondents' perspectives, three indicators were used to measure their knowledge of good governance, the efficacy of public administrative activities, and the supply of public services and administrative functions.The paper uses fivepoint Likert assessments to quantify the perceptions: strongly agree (1), agree (2), neutral (3), disagree (4), and strongly disagree (5) (Subedi, 2016).
Thus, the proportion of respondents and their agreement with the aspects of administrative service delivery and good governance are determined using descriptive statistics.

Perception on administration
Regarding methods used to offer public services, respondents were given the following six statements.They are: the public's opinion of the administrative system, including service delivery before and after, receiving local services, access to information for the general public, the availability of elected officials and administrative employees, and an increase in the number of service recipients.Each category of administrative function has a median value of 2, a mode value of 2, and a mean value that ranges from 1.71 to 1.97 (Table 4).
According to these descriptive data, the majority of study participants feel that the administration services are satisfactory.As per the decentralization theory, it is critical to evaluate how the new administrative systems, implemented after the local election, are perceived by the administrative staff, elected village assembly members, and service recipients.The first rule is that a representative government functions better the more closely it is connected to its constituents.The second rule is that citizens should have the ability to vote for the types and numbers of public services they want under this system generally (A.

Table 3 (cont.). Distribution of respondents by socio-economic characteristics
The decentralization theory also suggested that each public service should be provided by the jurisdiction having control over the minimum geographic area for the internalizing benefits (Oates, 1972).

Efficiency of administrative services
The effectiveness of administrative functions may be evaluated using several metrics, such as staff productivity, administrative service time, administrative service cost, and the accessibility of physical resources for effective service delivery at the local level.All stakeholders and recipients of local services have seen positive changes.According to the review in Table 5, approximately 93% of all respondents agreed with the statements of the first two dimensions (working efficiency staff and time for administrative services), but only about 67% claimed that the cost of administrative staff had increased after the election, followed by greater availability of resources (70.9%).
Significantly, a minority of respondents (specifically, 44.4%) possess knowledge of the whole set of four characteristics that govern the efficiency

Respondent's knowledge of good governance
The number of composite international governance indicators, which aim to assess several aspects of governance quality, has grown dramatically during the last 20 years.The analysis is based on the study of Ivanyna and Shah (2018), who provided four criteria for assessing local government: accountable governance (AG), fair governance (FG), responsible governance (RBG), and responsive governance (RG).The dearth of questions focused on perceptions of effective government-imposed constraints on the selection of these aspects.The goal of responsive governance is to support both formal and informal norms while actively promoting and facilitating the welfare of society.
This activity is necessary to develop a government that can respond to the needs and desires of its citizens.In order to guarantee the formation of a fair and unbiased system of governance, the government plays a crucial role in encouraging communication between disparate interests and placing an emphasis on inclusivity and compromise.The program encourages community involvement while advancing and defending the rights of persons who are facing financial difficulties, un-derrepresented minority groups, and economic adversity.The findings support a positive correlation between citizen perceptions of local government performance and the quality of governance and service delivery in Nepal.The majority of respondents expressed satisfaction with improvements in administrative service delivery, efficiency, resource availability, and reduced service turnover time.Thus, H1 is accepted.
The results confirm that enhancements in governance and service delivery practices positively influence citizen perceptions in Nepal.Post-local elections, there were reported improvements in administrative efficiency, reduced service turnover time, and increased resource availability, contributing to favorable citizen perceptions.Thus, H2 is accepted.
The results suggest that psychological, social, and institutional factors significantly contribute to the impact of citizen perceptions on public trust and satisfaction in Nepal's government-administration relationship.Thus, H3 is accepted.While there were variations in perceptions among different demographic groups and ecological zones, there was overall high recognition of government accountability and responsiveness, which are essential components influencing public trust and satisfaction.However, mixed opinions regarding effective governance highlight the complexity of factors influencing citizen perceptions.
This study investigates the complex relationship between people, society, and government in service provision.This study emphasizes the relevance of public happiness, confidence, and reliability in service delivery.The argument also claims that reliable local services are essential for satisfaction and that the government should lead this effort.The study discusses service delivery practices, focusing on local administrations' communication strategies.This paper proposes that legal frameworks, human resources, financial variables, accountability, transparency, and accessibility interact to enhance service delivery.The rhetoric emphasizes central-local collaboration in governance.Teamwork improves public health.
The analysis recognizes the considerable benefits of collaboration, decentralization, people-centric development, and meaningful engagement, regarding them as crucial elements that enhance different facets of the research process.This paper credits collaboration, decentralization, peoplecentric development, and meaningful engagement for its benefits.The findings exhibit similarities with previous studies conducted by Treisman (2007) These findings can be explained by the fact that administrative service delivery improved after the elected local government handled the responsibility.
The study highlights the ever-evolving and dynamic nature of governance practices.The paper argues that there is an ongoing need for adaptation and innovation to ensure the optimal efficacy of local governance mechanisms.The results reiterate the core message that the nexus between governance, service delivery, and citizen perceptions remains pivotal in the context of modern state development.

CONCLUSION
This comprehensive study examines key objectives related to historical and contemporary state development, acknowledges the challenges faced by developing nations, and emphasizes the significance of efficient public service delivery, collaborative governance, and public opinion influence while also recognizing current governance shortcomings.Post-elections, the local government of Nepal has initiated significant reforms, demonstrating its commitment to aligning with citizens' and federal government's goals through proactive engagement and decentralization efforts.
This study underscores the vital role of stakeholder collaboration in sustaining development and highlights the importance of successful reform implementation, particularly in budgetary policies and ordinances, and addressing issues related to uncooperative authorities.It emphasizes the necessity of ongoing policy interventions and reforms to achieve sustainable progress through increased collaboration, decentralization, citizen engagement, and local governance participation.The paper contributes to both theory and practice by offering insights into the dynamics of state development, particularly in the context of developing nations like Nepal.

Table 1 .
Sampling and population of the study Note: ASs = Administrative Staffs; VAM = Village Assembly Members.Table1depicts the sample population in the study areas.The sample population in the rural municipalities of Faktanglung, Mai Jogmai, and Kamal, respectively, is 126, 182, and 248 service recipients.

Table 2 .
Sample size determination

Table 2
displays the target sample size, 504, calculated for each district using Krejcie and Morgan method(1970).Reliability in quantitative research

Table 3
the research locations, out of a total of 84.In Jhapa, all of the administrative staff members were from Brahman/Chhetri groups, whereas in the Taplejung district, around 75% of them were Janjati.

Table 3 .
Distribution of respondents by socio-economic characteristics

Table 4 .
Proportion of responses on administrative system evaluation Note: ASD = Administrative Service Delivery; PI = Public Information; EDs = Elected Leaders; ASs = Administrative Staffs; VAMs = Village Assembly Members; SRs = Service Receivers.

Table 5 .
Efficiency of administrative service delivery by place of residence

Table 6 .
Indicators of good governance by place of residence

Table 5 (
cont.).Efficiency of administrative service delivery by place of residence