Lalitpur, Apr. 27: Finance Minister Mahesh Acharya today stressed government-civil society partnership to successfully implement the state’s policy and institutional reform package for achieving a higher growth rate.

The civil society will have an important role to play in implementing the reform package that the government has announced, Acharya told an interaction here this afternoon.

Acharya said that growing importance of the civil society was a special feature of the 21st century. “The government is committed to enlarge the role of the civil society. I communicated this message to the donor community in the recently concluded Nepal Development Forum meet in Paris,” he added.

“The state alone won’t be able to see to all the areas,” Acharya said. “The non-governmental organisations should focus their attention in the areas where the government has failed to reach.”

Acharya said that the government was ready to amend the existing laws to make sure that the NGOs could uphold the poor people’s cause more effectively.

The nation, however, expects the NGOs to be transparent and accountable and work in a non-partisan basis.”

NGO-Federation President Gauri Pradhan said that the government and the civil society were very closely related. “The government and the NGOs are not the opposites,” Pradhan said and assured of the civil society’s assistance to the government in its development efforts.

NGO-Federation’s Vice-president Dr. Renu Rajbhandari said that NGOs faced problems as they were still governed by the undemocratic laws made before the advent of the multiparty democracy.

Rajbhandari said that the NGOs should be accountable to the state adding the state should be equally accountable to the NGOs.

Organised by NGO-Federation and participated in by professors, businessmen and NGO operators, the interaction discussed the civil society’s role in national development.