Decentralization has been advocated by donors and development agencies as an instrument to ensure the broader participation of citizens as well as to improve local governance leading to poverty reduction from the bottom up. With that being said, decentralization has been implemented and is being implemented in many developing countries without much success. This situation raises several questions that, have been addressed by some of our decentralization experts.
Why is decentralization still hard to achieve in developing countries?
“Many countries hastily introduced decentralization reforms during crises supported by the international community, but did not install a framework which would encourage continual improvement. We now have another crisis and it will again be here for a while but this time there can be a design for continual improvement. Indonesia has made a remarkably successful decentralization effort because of the monetary crisis of the late 90s. It was not perfect but a more perfect approach would have failed because the window of opportunity would have closed. In the following years, improvements were made by implementing regulations but later presidents were more concerned about problems of administration rather than addressing disparities in SNG ability to provide services.”
“Besides poor administrative and fiscal capacities, hurdles to decentralization are usually political in nature, e.g. a dominant or one-party system, concerns about demands for autonomy (or secession), a lack of consensus and understanding on the content and extent of a complex process, etc. Some prerequisites must exist for decentralization to stand some chance of success, such as: a sustained political will, a strategic national leadership, a comprehensive and updated legal framework, a national technical capacity dedicated to implementing, monitoring and evaluating the process, and course, a broad public support for the latter. If decentralization is done right, citizen participation in decision-making can then contribute to better service delivery. Also, decentralization requires a coordinated and consistent donor support both to the reform itself and local service delivery. Aid should translate into more development at the local level, and ultimately contribute to reducing territorial inequalities. ”
“Lack of resources, skills, information and uneven level of development of local governments result in inappropriate organization and assignment of decentralized functions. In the example of Croatia, some developed local governments with ease fulfill assigned functions much more extensively than regulated, like for example primary health care function. On the other hand, significant number of local governments lack human and financial resources to secure and fulfill basic administrative functions. Adjustment of fiscal revenues needed to fulfill these functions is cumbersome, ongoing process. In developed countries this process has been already encoded in legislation.”
“Social structures of intersecting inequalities with respect to ethnicity, caste, religion, class, age, gender, sexual preference and disabilities along with ever growing forms of communal/regional conflicts as well as polarized power centers and other similar constraints make participation of people in local governance and the collective assertion of their rights and entitlements difficult. This volatility further augments the stiffening of bureaucratic structures to become less accountable to people.”
What are some preconditions for the successful implementation of decentralization?
“For successful implementation of decentralization, stakeholder dialogue, attempting to stimulate partners to learn from each other and strengthen relationships in order to take collective action, and effective communication between companies, governments, NGOs, academics and other societal groups are fundamental. Moreover, local actors as well as government administrations need to develop organizational capacity and technical and entrepreneurial skills (e.g., financial planning management). The building or strengthening of the technical capacities of all the actors in development is a necessary precondition to make sure that decentralization does not give rise to diminishing support services and that, in view of the growing responsibilities of local administrations, decentralized functions can still be carried out.”
“In my opinion, the key preconditions can be rethinking decentralization in order to consider it as development tool, an honest mode of governance as being not only a financial resource mobilization tool and preparing the different actors of the design and implementation of decentralization in order to enable them to master their role on the ground. For instance, train the local decision-makers in activities and budget planning, build a strong network between the central state and local decision makers, share best practices, diversify financial resources mobilization, involve the population from the bottom up in decision making and set a concrete framework of all stakeholders.”
“To succeed in decentralization in developing countries, it is necessary to tackle head-on the question of the capacities which continue to mortgage the future of local and regional authorities. It is also important that the capacity of local actors also targets local government partners and is linked to the development strategy at local level. The issue of governance must also be resolved and to do this, results-based management must be generalized in local communities. Its interest lies in the long term in the generalization of a true culture of performance by taking particular care in the definition of the mandatory minimum conditions and in performance indicators. It is important in this context to abandon the budget of resources and the support of the state and other partners for access to financing facilities is linked to the achievement of performance.”
“Several preconditions include the will of the Central Government leadership; training the leaders captains of the decentralization program in all the ministries and sectors at all levels of government structures; the introduction of decentralization as a subject in schools for learners and future leaders to understand it from the outset. The implementation of decentralization should not be regarded as a project. It is a program.”
What are the advantages and disadvantages of decentralization?
“For counties in Africa, where centralized rule was often the norm during the post-colonial period, decentralization means an improvement in public accountability and participation. These are crucial for poverty alleviation and reducing the gap between disparate populations of young and old, urban and rural, and rich and poor. In South Africa, the provision of community development workers, deployed by an arm of the provincial government within each local district, has seen a definite improvement in governable relationships. This is particularly relevant for those communities who do not rely on electronic communication and where cellular and internet networks are scarce, or costly. The efficacy of a strong civic structure is very effective not only in rural areas that have been emptied of younger, economically active individuals but also in urban slums and townships, where residents are typically disconnected from mainstream economies. Although many people have benefited more from a smaller and more focused management of their local resources, decentralization also increases the risk of corruption and political capture at the local level. It is particularly during increased exposure to illnesses such as HIV/Aids, Ebola and, more recently, Corona that community structures will need to operate at their best.”
“Decentralization is an important asset in designing, planning and implementing relevant and effective policies to increase social and economic development. On the one hand, through the representation of national bodies at different levels, institutional actors increase their capacity to identify specifics needs and gaps which policies will propose to meet. While, on the other hand, local actors, because they are fully involved in policy implementation through decentralization, are able to take into account the strengths and weaknesses of local and regional contexts to maximize the effectiveness of these policies. On the political side, decentralization has the advantage of increasing the accountability of political representatives towards citizens, as well as an increased representativeness of citizens’ interests in the decision-making process, so essential for transparency in a democracy. In the case of a fragile context, if the decentralization process is not supported by measures whose goals are to meet institutional, financial and technical gaps, the decentralization process can accentuate initial weaknesses and significantly reduce the effectiveness of the public policies that are implemented. When this is the case, too often the state’s functioning faces bottlenecks that can considerably reduce institutional capacity to implement public policies at all levels.”
“The most important advantage of decentralization is that it provides a framework that facilitates and stimulates local sustainable development through an effective and substantial fiscal decentralization. By facilitating a greater popular participation in governance and an active control of public action, decentralization is equally the best way to support the emergence of a civic culture, tolerance and trust among the local actors. As there is a local governance body, decentralization is the opportunity for those communities to find appropriate solutions to their local problems and issues. Of the disadvantages, the greatest one is the complexity of the decentralized governance system. In addition, it is always tricky to ensure an adequacy between local and the national interests and, in the absence of an equalization system, decentralization can generate inequalities that may increase among the entities.”
“Some advantages are that it allows citizen participation in decision making thus allowing good governance and democratization to take place. The disadvantage would be that it requires more time for coordination in decision making and implementation.”
How does the lack of decentralization affect international aid?
“There are a lot of factors but perhaps the following two are most important: international donors and funders are discouraged from pumping money and/or aid into centralized governance systems because these systems are (rightly) seen to be more interested in strengthening their grip on decision making than in improving participation, improving quality of life or addressing local needs; major and overriding objectives for international aid particularly during the last two decades. Additionally, since donors and funders are usually very conscience about the need for their assistance to reach so to speak ‘everyone’, a centralized governance system naturally and by definition, then becomes an impediment in the way of fulfilling that goal and subsequently a discouraging factor in affecting aid for a governance system that is seen to be centralized.”
“International aid provided to a certain country is of a limited amount and duration. Usually this aid is given for the purpose of creating best practices to solve specific challenges in a specific sector. Decentralization allows for the projects supported by international aid to “localize” approaches, methodologies and steps to solve a specific problem, be it technical or social in nature. A decentralized government (the local government) is the “mini” model of a country where all elements, the public and private structure, mostly exist. It will be easy to demonstrate success which can be endorsed for replication and upscaling at national level.”
“The ownership principle is very crucial in international aid. According to the subsidiarity, local institutions should be given a key role because of their knowledge of the territory and their capacity not only to mediate between the territories and the central governments but to mobilize local actors and resources too. In countries where decentralization policies are not implemented, institutions are less solid and less capable of playing their role as actors for co-development. The main consequence for international aid programmes is a loss of sustainability and the capacity to make a positive impact.”
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