Updated February 1998
|
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations |
United Nations Capital Development Fund | International
Fund for Agricultural Development | German Agency
for Technical Cooperation | Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation | World Bank |
Rome
16-18 December 1997
Technical Consultation on Decentralization
Documentation
Spreading Power to the Periphery: An Assessment of Democratic Local
Governance -
Executive Summary
by Harry Blair
Political Science Department
Bucknell University, USA
The full document described below is available for downloading by FTP (Word 6.0, zipped, 90K).
The paper was prepared for the Program and Operations Assessment
Division, Center for Development Information and Evaluation, Bureau for
Policy Planning and Coordination, U.S. Agency for International Development
(Washington, DC). The views expressed in the following paper are those of the author and are not to be attributed to any of the TCD sponsoring organisations.
AS A PART OF the growing profile assumed by democracy in the international
community in recent years, decentralization has taken on increased importance
as a donor strategy. Bringing the two together has produced democratic decentralization
or democratic local governance (DLG) as it is labeled in this report. DLG
may be defined as a system in which meaningful authority is devolved to
local bodies that are accountable and accessible to their citizens, who
in turn enjoy full human and legal rights in exercising political liberty.
As a largely administrative enterprise, decentralization has had a long
history as a donor-assisted initiative, but as a democratization strategy
it is relatively new and deserving of evaluation.
The present report is based on studies of DLG conducted in 1996-97 in six
countries: the Philippines; Ukraine, Bolivia; Honduras; Mali; and the Indian
state of Karnataka. All have introduced new DLG initiatives during the 1990s.
For the first five studies, CDIE fielded teams for in-country visits of
about three weeks each and has published reports in its Impact Evaluation
series. The Indian study was a parallel effort, in which CDIE commissioned
a group of social scientists to examine decentralization in one particular
state with a long DLG experience so that that experience could be used as
a basis for assessing specific issues emerging from the other studies.
Historically, decentralization initiatives have not enjoyed great success,
largely for two reasons: despite their rhetoric central governments have
often not really wanted to devolve any real power to the local level; and,
when significant authority has been devolved, a disproportionate share of
the benefits has been captured by local elites. The new democratic variant
of decentralization, however, promises to overcome these problems by introducing
increased participation, accountability, and transparency in local governance,
along with empowerment for previously marginal groups. In addition, it offers
greater potential for local revenue mobilization by increasing the linkages
between payment for and delivery of public services.
Central findings
The DLG context
Although all our cases save India had been characterized by similarly centralized,
top-down governance structures, motivations to embark on DLG diverged widely.
Among them were a central government failure to deliver adequate services,
a desire on the part of those in power to build up a party base, and idealism.
DLG provisions also vary quite widely, including inter alia mandatory representation
for women and minorities, a system of elected monitoring bodies to parallel
and oversee regularly elected municipal governments, and revision of municipal
boundary lines through local citizen committees. Sectors of responsibility
devolved to the local level differ considerably as well; in some cases,
virtually all government functions have been turned over to local authorities,
while in others only specific areas, most commonly health and education,
have been devolved.
Donor and host-country strategies to promote DLG
With the exception of India, all of the countries studied have some USAID
DLG assistance in place. Pilot programs, in which promising communities
are chosen to develop DLG approaches that can then be replicated on a larger
scale, have been common. However, there is some risk in this "building
on the best" approach, in that what works for the "best"
may be less effective for the "rest." DLG has two basic components:
the more participatory or democratic ("D" or input) side and the
more administrative, service delivery-oriented ("G" or output)
side. Some DLG efforts have emphasized the former, others the latter. Either
way, DLG appears capable of delivering valuable results.
Resistance to DLG
Any substantial DLG initiative necessarily entails a significant shifting
of political power and, as such, inevitably creates apprehensions, jealousies
and, often, outright opposition from higher-level political leaders and
civil servants. Some of this hostility is prompted by self-interest and
corruption, but other facets of it may be for good reason, since political
leaders rightly want to be able to articulate national goals and objectives,
while civil servants emphasize maintaining national standards. To protect
against ambition and excess on the one hand, while safeguarding political
space and program integrity on the other, much political will at the top
is needed, both in initiating DLG and nurturing it.
Representation, empowerment and benefits
Much of DLG's appeal lies in an anticipated causal chain beginning with
greater participation at the local level for marginal groups-women, ethnic
minorities, and the poor. More participation, it is thought, will
lead to better representation for these elements in local decisions.
This in turn is expected to empower these groups, produce more benefits
for them and, finally, lead to poverty alleviation. The CDIE assessment
found that while participation and representation has increased significantly
for these groups, the last three elements in the chain are successively
harder to realize. Women and minorities have gained representation, but
turning this into empowerment and the other goals has proven difficult.
However, this is not to say that all these efforts are wasted. Hitherto
excluded groups can gain valuable experience in political life, and children
of all genders and ethnic communities will have models to inspire their
ambitions. Geographically concentrated minorities are often an exception
here, as their numbers allow them to win control of local councils and turn
them to new directions. A second exception is found in our Latin American
cases, where local councils appear more willing to undertake public projects
in fields like health and sanitation that will benefit all communities irrespective
of gender, ethnicity, and wealth.
Fiscal autonomy and regional equity
Basically fiscal autonomy is a simple idea: Devolving control over revenue
mobilization allows people to decide for themselves what services they want
and how much they are willing to pay for them. But given the low tax base
that most localities face, some central allocations will be required for
DLG to succeed. For several of our systems these central grants have been
generous, ranging up to 40% of national revenue, while in others they have
been considerably less so. Capacity to raise local revenues also showed
variation, which can create strategic problems. For example, more advanced
municipalities will generate more revenues, provide more services, and become
even further advanced than their poorer counterparts, who find it hard to
raise even minimal local revenues. While central governments can compensate
for these inequities through re-allocation procedures, this too has a potential
downside because too much subsidization can weaken local incentives to tax
and be politically difficult to sustain at the national level.
Public accountability
There are two distinct types of accountability in DLG: government employees
to elected representatives; and elected representatives to the public as
a whole. Both are essential if there is to be genuine accountability in
DLG. The first type has suffered, largely because central governments have
given in to civil servants' reluctance to be placed under local control.
Accountability of elected officials to the citizenry comes with elections
(provided they are free and fair), but elections are very blunt instruments
of popular control and typically occur only at widespread intervals. But
people must be able to indicate to local governments their likes and dislikes
between elections, and to find out about wrongdoing in local government.
A number of mechanisms can serve these purposes: political parties (in particular
opposition parties); civil society; the media; public meetings; and formal
redress procedures. Each of these mechanisms has been instituted in at least
two of the six systems studied. But none has been tried in all systems,
no two systems have attempted the same combination of instruments, and no
single mechanism has thus far proved effective in all settings where it
has been tried. Some systems appear to be doing well with several mechanisms,
while others have fared less well so far. The implications are that a package
of instruments can be crafted to the particular situation in a given country
context. For instance, if local level civil society seems inadequate to
provide significant accountability, perhaps the combination of a strong
party system and an active media could carry more of the load.
Performance
Most of this assessment focuses on the democracy or "D" component
of DLG, but what local government achieves in governance (the "G"
side of DLG) is equally important. For DLG cannot just be something; it
must also do something-it must deliver services that citizens find useful.
The DLG initiatives studied in this assessment are mostly too recent to
obtain a very good reading on their performance, but in a couple of cases
there are indications that service delivery has improved and that greater
public accountability has played an important role in helping bring this
about.
National level advocacy
As with other new institutions, DLG requires leadership and financial support.
National leadership and international donors can provide this support initially,
but it must be expected to wane from both quarters over time. Local government
units, therefore, will need some new mechanism to champion their cause at
the national level. Associations of municipalities have become quite effective
institutions in this regard in several of the countries studied.
Conclusions
Like any development initiative, DLG presents a mixed bag of results at
this early stage in its evolution. The gains to be derived from a well-conceived
and implemented DLG initiative are considerable and are more than sufficiently
worthwhile to justify such efforts. But there are some goals that DLG seems
ill-suited for, and donors or host-country governments seeking to accomplish
such objectives through DLG are destined to be disappointed. On the positive
side, DLG can:
- increase political participation for the weak and vulnerable;
- provide significant empowerment to geographically concentrated minorities;
- improve governmental responsiveness to broad popular demands;
- offer a potential for local government activities that can deliver universal
benefits;
- provide partially for its own sustainability through local revenue mobilization;
and,
- enhance public accountability.
On the downside, there are some areas in which DLG initiatives do not appear
to be able to deliver, including:
- empowering weak and vulnerable groups (outside of areal enclaves) very
much, at least in the short run;
- reducing local poverty to any serious extent through targeted efforts;
- reducing regional imbalances (unless counteracted by central subsidies
to poorer areas); and,
- drawing on civil society or political parties as instruments of public
accountability (unless other institutions like the media can combine with
them).
