By decentralization is meant the process whereby government institutions transfer decision-making powers and resources closer both to the target populations of public policy and to all protagonists in civil society, in the context of the re-definition of the role of the State, deregulation and privatization. Essentially decentralization can take three forms:
1. Deconcentration to regional and/or local levels (for example, a Ministry which transfers some of its activities and legal powers to its regional and/or local units). Such a transfer fundamentally constitutes administrative decentralization in that it does not really involve a shift in decision-making power but only in “some administrative responsibilities from the central government to the regional, zonal and district level government offices, retaining all powers of control and authority with the centre” (IV4, p. 3).
2. Delegation of functions to regional semi-public bodies (for example a Ministry transferring some of its activities and legal powers to regional and specialist agencies). Delegation consists of “assigning some tasks to the lower level. It implies that the central government creates or transfers to an agency or administrative level certain specified functions and duties, which the latter has broad discretion to carry out. The agencies may or may not be under the direct control of the central government (but) indirect control is implied in delegation” (IV4,p. 4).
3. Devolution of functions and resources to the populations themselves or to local government levels (transfer to organizations representative of populations or to municipalities, village authorities or rural communities). Devolution “involves creating or strengthening independent levels or units of government through transfer of functions and authority from the central government. The local units of government to which functions and authority are devolved would be mostly autonomous, with the central authority only exercising indirect, supervisory control over them” (IV4, p. 5). Devolution is the most advanced form of decentralization since it implies a transfer of power to a local institution or association which enjoys a high level of autonomy. Popular participation in the decision-making process is most important in this type of decentralization.
Evidently decentralization is simply a general process covering all spheres of government action, and its particular conditions for success need to be specified for each branch of the economy. However, this report deals exclusively with conditions for decentralization in relation to State rural development action. In the context of the legacy of centralized policies, the State’s retrenchment and, in particular, decentralization, carry a number of risks which FAO’s experience in the field has contributed to identifying. There are five decisive legacy/risk pairs:
1. Centralised policies were guided by a pure supply philosophy: a global development strategy which did not take specific local conditions into account.
2. Lack of mechanisms which would make it possible to adjust the instruments to suit the specific problems of each region, branch or type of producer.
3. There is a risk that governments will be tempted to base their intervention approach on a pure demand philosophy, which would have the merit of taking account of the particular circumstances of each locality or type of producer, but the disadvantage that action would be diluted and that an overall philosophy to guide the definition of rural development strategies would be lost.
4. The lack of an overall philosophy can be particularly serious since the sum of local solutions does not necessarily provide an overall solution to the problem of rural development, or higher and more stable levels of investment, employment and production.
1. When intervention is centralized, information is not distributed in a symmetric fashion, but is concentrated at central government levels
2. There is a risk that rural populations are unable to gain a general view of their demands and specific problems and co-ordinate their activities.
3. There is a strong possibility that local development strategies, albeit grounded in a solid knowledge of conditions surrounding each problem at local level, may not be consistent with a regional philosophy and, even more, with the global development model.
4. Decentralization, therefore, provides insufficient possibilities for popular participation, and the conditions for such participation must be created.
1. The tenet of centralized policies is that State intervention alone is able to correct market weaknesses and make it possible to advance towards development. This paternalistic development approach hinders the capacity for autonomous action and initiative of both rural populations and local government levels.
2. If the relocation of functions is not accompanied by a transfer of legal power, decentralization can produce institutional vacuums, a reduction in the supply of support services and a widening of income disparities between urban and rural areas.
1. Under centralized policies resources were allocated in ways that sustained State clienteles which had a greater capacity to formulate their needs clearly and coherently in terms of projects and programs, as well as a level of organization that allowed them to lobby the State to obtain the lion’s share of public expenditure on rural development.
2. The imbalance in the organizational levels of rural populations creates the risk of an appropriation of the functions and resources transferred under decentralization by the richest, best organized municipalities and organizations.
3. In addition, the absence of strong, representative intermediate regional associations may diminish regional conflict-mediation capacity tilting it in favor of local powers which are less concerned with leading a global development strategy based on mediation and consultations.
1. Intermediate and local levels of centralized institutions were devised for the implementation of policies for whose definition they were not responsible. They are, therefore, characterised by a degree of inflexibility in terms of adapting to a changing environment and taking account of the new conditions under which participatory, decentralized policies are formulated.
2. Decentralization may lead to the paralysis of intermediate and local levels of government as well as of producer organizations, which are unable to assume the challenges posed by decentralization policy.
3. It is risky to think that it is simply enough to pass a decentralization law to ensure the latter’s immediate, consistent implementation.
4. On the contrary, it is necessary to ponder the question of the desired pace of decentralization: it should not be too swift, to allow for adaptation, nor too slow, in order to allow the decentralization process to forge ahead.
5. This point concerns, for example, the scheduling of training programs in relation to the scheduling of decentralization: “Experience even shows that there seems to be a stage before which it is not advised to start organizing training. In Niger, the impact of the training was limited, in particular because the trainees, who were government officials working at sub-national level, did not yet have the responsibility to plan” (IV1, p. 33). “In India, the programme was too much anticipating on decentralization and the conditions were not yet adequate to allow participants to apply what they had learned. Successful experiences of anticipatory training are not known. Experience shows that training can be most effective and useful when decentralized institutions have been established and when the government is trying to define their working procedures” (IV1, p. 35).
The knowledge and experience which FAO has built up places it in a position to propose both an approach and a methodology for implementing a well-conceived decentralization process which can by-pass the risks just identified.
