ISLAMABAD, June 9: National Reconstruction Bureau chairman Daniyal Aziz on Friday said initial bottlenecks and resistance to the Local Government system had subsided bringing a change in the governance culture in the country.

He was giving a detailed presentation on the current status of the devolution plan at a meeting of the Good Governance Group. The meeting was jointly presided over by the UNDP resident representative, Onder Yucer and the Asian Development Bank country director, Marshuk Ali Shah. All major donors including DIFD, CIDA, SDC, NORAD and UN agencies attended the meeting.

The NRB chief said the devolution process was being consolidated through capacity building of locally elected bodies and by the judiciary. He requested the donors to continue supporting devolution plan by facilitating capacity building in terms of planning, record keeping, IT and intra-district relations.

He said the Provincial Finance Commissions had to be made more effective by reducing leakages. In this connection, he called for further improvements in the tax and revenue mechanisms at the local level.

Mr Aziz pledged that the civil service reforms for district cadres and provincial restructuring would continue to ensure effective regulation of public funds. The NRB chairman said community mobilization was being aided by the Devolution Trust for Community Empowerment (DTCE) and tripartite agreements with the NCHD and Pakistan Rural Support Programmes will ensure the success of citizen community boards.

He also suggested ways in which donor and government coordination could be enhanced to ensure autonomy of LGs at district and sub-district level. Mr Yucer said devolution was the most crucial, strategic and fundamental attempt at reform and reconstruction in the country.

The donors and the government should work hand in hand to ensure synchronization of development activity which was embedded in the new devolved environment and help ensure it's long-term goal of local-level democracy and decision making.

Mr Shah confirmed the ADB's commitment to the devolution process and called on the stakeholders to align their programmes with the new LG system. Later, the donors called for a strategy at the federal level, which would help them integrate their programmes within the devolution process and enhance coordination.