Mountain Forum Himalayas is a collective platform initiated by CASA for addressing the issues specific to hilly States of Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal in 1997. The forum has identified four core areas for its work, after a careful analysis of ground situation. These are - local self-governance, natural resource management, women development and empowerment and capacity building of CSOs. To impart clarity in its functioning, a concept note on Mountain Forum was prepared. Mountain Forum in Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal has 14 members and holds regular meetings on a 4-month basis.

Mountain Forum is recognized for its exemplary work in local self-governance institutes, i.e., Panchayats. Before the first Panchayati Raj elections in Himachal Pradesh in 1995, the Partner Organizations of Mountain Forum launched a major statewide Voters? Awareness Generation Campaign on Panchayati Raj through nukkad natak, posters, district-level workshops, group discussions, along with officials of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Department.

After the elections a training was organized for elected Panchayat representatives, with special thrust on participation of women from backward and dalit sections. During this training it was felt that the act, its language and the formats of forms are too dense and complicated so elected representatives were unable to interpret and apply these provisions in their day to day functioning. Mountain Forum took up the initiative of simplifying all this into a language easily understood by the common man, by bringing out a handbook Naya Daur (New Era), in Hindi. This publication is still being used as a guide for training by various organizations.

During this exercise, it was felt that there is no platform through which the elected Panchayat representatives can raise their voice, regarding their work and problems being faced, so in 1998, Mountain Forum undertook the publication of a quarterly magazine in Hindi, Panch Parmeshwar. Though the perspective of this magazine is national, it mainly focuses on mountain region.

Before the second statewide Panchayati elections in December 2000, another major Panchayat Voters Awareness Campaign was launched covering 8 districts of the state. After the elections, capacity building of elected representatives was done intensively. A training of trainers was organized in 9 districts of the state and participants included elected representatives, CSOs, ex-Panchayat members, retired government officials and lawyers. From this, a group of 40-member team was formed, the objective being that whenever elected representatives find difficulties in their routine work, they can contact the members of this team for seeking solution in these 9 districts. Later, when the state government prepared its roaster of TOTs, many from this 40-member team were also included in government roaster.

Mountain Forum took up the initiative of holding a two-day workshop on 13-14 May 2001, alongwith UNDP, GTZ, Govt. Departments and Consultancy Organizations on Panchayati Raj to discuss the future of local self-governance. The major agenda emerging form this included strengthening of Gram Sabha by imparting best training to Panchayat representatives and regular follow up and monitoring.

The component of ?best training and follow up? has a connotation here. The Himachal Pradesh government conducted a 3-month training of Panchayati Raj representatives in all the districts of state. This exhausted their budget. However, it did not induce qualitative changes in Panchayati Raj representatives and much work remained to be done. Realizing the implication of this grave lack, Mountain Forum organized two days crash courses for Panchayati Raj representatives in all the districts of Himachal Pradesh (except Chamba). These are still being conducted whenever a need is felt. Going a step further, the last session of these courses is totally devoted to the problems still being faced by elected representatives in their day to day work. The idea behind this is to identify these gray areas and take them up with the government before the third statewide Panchayat elections. Mountain Forum Himalayas is also bringing out another periodical, Parvatik, devoted to developmental issues in mountain areas.