Nepal is undergoing a rapid political transformation since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Accord (CPA) between the government and the CPN-Maoist in November 2006. After missing deadlines of the first historic Constituent Assembly (CA) to complete its mandate and its 2012 dissolution , concern remain about the second CA’s – elected in November 2013 -- ability to produce a constitution by the early 2015 deadline. This concern stems largely from the impasse among political leadership during the first CA over a number of key issues, including state restructuring based on a federal system, local government elections, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. These issues remain and public perceptions of political leadership and the Government are increasingly negative.

PROJECT OVERVIEW 

Singha Durbar is a two-year, $1.003 million project that seeks to mitigate public disillusionment and dissatisfaction towards the Government and political process using multi-media communications and story-telling approaches. Specific project goals include:

• To increase public knowledge of government functions at the local and national levels and foster constructive citizen-government engagement;
• To foster dialogues at multiple levels to create a shared national vision for leadership and governance; and
• To promote positive role models for leadership and governance through popular culture.

The initiative centers on the production and broadcast of 13-episodes of a political TV drama series, Singha Durbar, and a 52-episode radio drama series, Gaun Gaunma Singha Durbar. It uses these two media products in addition to think tank events and policy papers to catalyze dialogue among key stakeholders on governance, collaborative leadership, and policy issues in Nepal. This is expected to increase public understanding of how government works at local and national levels, increase interest in constructive civic engagement, and help identify possibilities for collaborative political culture in Nepal. By neutralizing partisanship and conflicting points of view by portraying issues in the form of a story with the public as observers, the project aims to build trust and promote values of inclusion, transparency, honesty and collaborative government through good leadership by creating role models. The media products developed will reach citizens in in all 75 districts through local FM stations.

The project is implemented by Search For Common Ground (SFCG) in partnership with the Antenna Foundation, Common Ground Productions and local contractors for the production of radio and television dramas.

Read More: Singha Durbar (The Lion’s Palace): A Media Program and Creating Role Models for Good Governance Factsheet 

Learn More