UNCDF
Working Paper
Policy & Institutional Analysis & Programming
Strategies
Programme Strategy Implications
Policy & Institutional Considerations
Scope for UNCDF Impact
Institutional Strategies & Challenges
Which Local Government Institutions?
Institutional Development Challenges
Strategies & Challenges: Emerging Patterns
Chart 1
Decentralisation: Expected Benefits & Feasible Objectives
Efficiency and Governance Benefits and Objectives
Chart 2
Scope of The Pilot Role
What then are the overall programming strategy implications of the
findings of the assessment as outlined above ? There are essentially
3 sets of questions:
Whether to programme: Is the context appropriate for an LDF?
How to programme: What institutional strategy to promote & what challenges to be addressed?
What to expect: What sorts of programme benefits might be realised and what objectives feasible?
When are conditions appropriate or not for UNCDF to embark on programming ? For the moment this question has been partly pre-empted through UNCDF’s selection of Concentration countries – the key questions are then not if but how to tailor programmes to country context, and what objectives and benefits can be reasonably attained. (See Sections 2 and 3 below.)
But UNCDF is aware that situations change in these and in other countries, and that it must periodically reassess whether continuation or expansion of ongoing LDF projects or new LDF programming is justified. In doing this, it is worth recalling the two main strategic goals of an LDF:
- to provide direct support to decentralised service delivery and improved local governance capacities within the project area; and,
- to do so by establishing a test mechanism or policy model for further decentralisation of resources by government and other donors.
Furthermore, there would be little point in aiming for the second goal (2) if CDF only focussed on countries whose policy and institutional context were already highly favourable – the job would have already been done ! Here what is important is to identify opportunities for supporting change. There are two sides to this:
Policy & Institutional Considerations
The most obvious indicator of opportunity lies in identifying positive policy trends and commitments toward devolution. These might be: legislation creating or empowering local government; plans to devolve greater resources to local government; etc.. At the same time it is important to identify key allies and proponents of these changes within government (since governments are rarely monolithic), and to assess their political weight and chance of success.
In the light of all this, are there "minimum" conditions for programming ? The most important "green light" indicator is this: the existence of an officially sanctioned local level representative assembly (mainly, if not fully elected) to which at least consultative functions have been entrusted by government and to which there is some commitment to devolve significant service provision responsibilities and resources. Without such bodies - or the commitment to institute them - there can be no hope of democratic decentralisation.
However, context aside, UNCDF must also gauge the scope for "adding value" to the national decentralisation policy debate. This will be enhanced where we are able to act in partnership not only with UNDP but also with other major multi- or bi-lateral development agencies; but it may be undermined or preempted where these agencies have already gone out ahead in their programming.
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It is instructive to cite instances where UNCDF judged that minimal conditions were not met: Malawi. In 1993 a reconnaissance mission judged that programming was premature. The regime then in power had consistently weakened elected District Councils in favour of appointed District Development Committees, and showed no inclination to reverse that policy. On the other hand, most informants agreed that the forthcoming multi-party elections would yield a new government with commitment to change course toward devolution. UNCDF therefore opted to wait. (The prediction of major change was duly realised, and in late 1994 UNCDF fielded a mission to prepare a project aiming to support the new government’s declared commitment to devolution, and to complement ongoing UNDP support.) Eritrea. In 1996 a reconnaissance mission determined that for the time being there was little scope for UNCDF to contribute to decentralisation policy through an LDF, for two reasons. Firstly, there was much unclarity as to the real autonomy, powers and resources of the planned Regional councils; secondly, any LDF project would have been greatly overshadowed by a very large Community Fund financed by the World Bank and other donors. |
Having determined whether to programming, the next key set of issues is the institutional focus and strategy for the LDF. Here again there are 3 sets of inter-related issues:
- the selection of the tier or tiers of government or administration and – in cases - the institutions at each tier, and,
- the principal institutional constraints to be addressed and the capacities and relationships to be developed;
- framing the overall strategy and challenges to be addressed
In many countries
there is no particular dilemma, but in multi-tier systems there may
be some question. The presumption will generally be toward the tier
where the institutions correspond most closely to local government (see
also Annexe 1), or where there is commitment or some likelihood of local
government being constituted in the future.
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The following are some examples of choices made regarding the prime institutional focus in LDFs: Cambodia. A hierarchy of elected committees had been established upward from Village, to Commune, to District. It was decided to focus on the Combine since Government had declared its intention to constitute corporate local government bodies at this level, and since the democratic legitimacy of the District committees was in question; Bangladesh. There was discussion about the merits of institutions at two levels: Union Councils and Thana Development & Coordination Committees (TDCCs). It was decided to focus on the Union Councils, which though weak, are bodies corporate and have a long history and a recognised governance role; the TDCCs, although they have more direct access to technical staff capacity, are administrative bodies, and are not directly elected (although with the forthcoming re-introduction of Upazila Councils at this level, the LDF will have to adjust to a dual focus). Malawi. District Councils and District Development Committees have continued to co-exist after the change in national government. Awaiting the outcome of the new government’s decentralisation policy, UNCDF initially opted for a project strategy which provided technical support to the Councils and brought them into the planning process; subsequently, UNCDF has joined UNDP in the policy debate to restore the pre-eminent role to the hopefully re-constituted Councils. |
But UNCDF is recognising that while local government is the prime focus, it can never be an exclusive one. In a multi-tier system, and especially where the local government has very limited technical capacities of its own (as in all the examples above), there will also be need to provide for some parallel focus on the higher tier (generally deconcentrated administration), for support to local government planning, implementation and monitoring.
Conversely, where there are viable local institutions below local government the strategy is also to encourage planning activity at this level, and in cases some degree of "onward" budget devolution by local government for activities of very local concern: e.g. in Ethiopia to the Peasant Associations, in Malawi to the VDCs and ADCs, in Uganda to the Parish councils, or in Cambodia to the VDCs.
Institutional Development Challenges
The institutional assessment outlined above under Sections A and B. will of course yield a range of problems and opportunities to be addressed in the institutional strategy of individual projects, which will vary greatly by context. A few themes can be listed, illustrating these variations, based on UNCDF experience to date:
Institutional Links for "Co-Provision." Where two or more tiers are jointly involved in service provision, a major underlying theme will be the development of mechanisms of communication and cooperation between the institutions at these different levels. Bangladeshi Union Councils have responsibility for maintaining primary schools and health posts, while the Thana Education and Health Departments are responsible for their staffing and equipping. Clearly, effective provision of primary education and health services require both support to and mechanisms for collaboration between these two levels (the co-provision issue is often neglected in the literature on "subsidiarity"). However, in other countries (Uganda, or Tanzania) the bulk of provision responsibilities are concentrated at one level and so these linkages are less important.Strategies & Challenges: Emerging PatternsLinks to other local actors. Where there is significant local NGO activity, attention should be focussed on encouraging cooperative arrangements with local governments. Thus, a major theme in both Uganda and Bangladesh, where NGOs are very active in areas of local government interest, will be the development of cooperative linkages; in Ethiopia, where NGOs are quite sparse, this is of less strategic interest.
Organisational Constraints. Where local governments are large, a major focus may often be on improving internal relations and efficiencies. Ugandan District Councils provide an extreme illustration. By contrast to local government structures in most other LDCs, they are highly complex organisations, with hundreds of staff, several million dollar budgets, a wide range of responsibilities, and many departments and committees. The internal organisational constraints and capacities to be addressed here are clearly far greater than those of a Malian Commune Rurale, with one or two employees and modest functions and resources.
Improved Planning & Budgeting Procedures. Project strategies for innovation must take account of several factors:
Local Resource Mobilisation. Where local governments have little or very modest tax raising powers the strategy for local resource mobilisation will clearly be much less significant than where their powers are considerable; where there are only deconcentrated committees (as in Mozambique Districts) there will be no scope at all.
- Precedent. Development of improved planning procedures must of course take due account of local capacities. More than this, the degree of latitude for such innovation varies significantly. In many countries with long-established local government systems (Tanzania, Bangladesh, Uganda) there are well established planning and budgeting systems, and an accumulation of procedure and precedent, to which only incremental change may be realistic; in others (Cambodia, Ethiopia, Guinea) with no such tradition, there may be much greater scope for innovation.
- Investment Planning & Recurrent Budgeting linkages. Where there are significant degrees of "joint provision" (as discussed above) there must be correspondingly greater care to ensure that, for example, the investment planning and budgeting for new schools at Commune level is linked to the recurrent budgeting process for teachers and school equipment at the Departmental level.
Accountability. Several sorts of concern arise, dictating different institutional strategies and mechanisms within projects to address them.
- The accountability of elected representatives to their constituents (between elections) is of course always a major concern. But, other things equal, this is a greater concern in local governments with large, populous jurisdictions (e.g. Ugandan or Tanzanian Districts), where face-to-face contact is harder, than in small units (such as Senegalese Communes). In the former greater attention must be paid for mechanisms of "internal devolution" to elected bodies at lower levels (e.g. to sub-Counties and Parishes in Uganda, or to Ward and Village Committees in Tanzania).
- The accountability of local civil servants to elected representatives is more problematic where the latter do not have any formal supervisory authority over them (e.g. Mali or Bangladesh, currently) – and so where their loyalties will tend to lie elsewhere - than where they do (Uganda or Tanzania). In the former, correspondingly greater attention will be needed to developing mechanisms (e.g. through service agreements or compacts, or even through formal contracting of line departments services by elected bodies or community groups) to compensate for the lack of direct managerial control over civil servants by elected representatives.
While the institutional and policy context of each country is unique, CDF experience suggests certain patterns to the institutional strategies and challenges which must be addressed in developing LDF programmes.
We can broadly distinguish between two local government stereotypes which characterise most (though not all) of the countries where UNCDF operates:
- The Prefecture/Commune model. Here there are 2 levels. Elected (Commune) councils with jurisdiction over a relatively small area, one or two employees, narrow range of functions; and line departments deployed at a higher (Departmental) level, where the pre-eminent political authority is the appointed Prefect, who supervises these departments, to which are assigned the principal service provision functions and budgets. This schematically characterises very many of the francophone & lusophone countries in Africa, especially in west Africa and, currently, Bangladesh.
- The District model. Here an elected council has jurisdiction over a relatively large and populous area, and has full or partial supervision over the line departments, also deployed at that same level, with responsibility for the principal service provision functions and budgets. This schematically characterises most of the anglophone countries, especially in eastern and southern Africa.
Using this schematic distinction we can very tentatively contrast some key LDF project design strategies and challenges, recognising that there are many implicit hypotheses which require testing:
| Project
Strategies & Challenges |
Prefecture-Commune Model |
District Model |
| Range of Infrastructure & Service Provision Responsibilities to be Decentralised | Narrower range & depth of sectors because of mandate, smaller planning area & weaker technical capacities; possibly smaller range of provision functions | Broader range & depth of sectors because of mandate, larger planning area & greater technical capacities; greater range of provision functions |
| Encouraging Accountability | Special attention to Departmental civil servant accountability, & compacts/contracts with Communes or communities | Special attention to District council accountability, and empowering Sub-District elected bodies |
| Introducing Improved Planning & Management Systems | Possibly greater scope for major change; challenges to link planning & recurrent budgeting | Need to build more on existing systems; greater scope for integrating planning & recurrent budgeting, dependent on Council-Line Dept relations |
| Introducing Fiscal Decentralisation Mechanisms | Since Prefectural Line Dept likely to retain major recurrent budget control, scope limited to modest development budgets to Communes | Scope for greater volume development budgets and also recurrent budgets, dependent on Council-line Dept. relations |
| Local Revenue Mobilisation | More modest scope & incentives | Greater scope & incentives |
| Key Institutional Challenges | Compensating for technical weakness of communes; linking communes to Prefectural Line Depts | Creating Sub-district representative and planning bodies; tackling internal District council organisational & management issues |
(return)
3. Decentralisation: Expected Benefits & Feasible Objectives
A final question raised by analysis of the Policy & Institutional Context relates to the sorts of decentralisation benefit which can be expected in a given context. This is important to enable us to design each LDF with a realistic idea of the feasible objectives, to inform both project strategy and monitoring.
Efficiency and Governance Benefits and Objectives
Decentralising government
functions aims to achieve a number of efficiency and governance benefits
which may be summarised below:
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Efficiency Benefits It is believed that one or more of the following propositions are true of local state or government institutions:
Governance Benefits At the same time, transforming local state institutions into local government bodies should allow improved local democratic governance, through various inter-related processes: Participation - greater scope for public participation in and oversight of local state decisions and activities Transparency - greater public access to information and transparency about local state decisions and performance Democratic Accountability – consequently, improved communication linkages between state and civil society and enhanced accountability of local state institutions. These Governance benefits feed back into and reinforce Efficiency benefits – especially those under a), b), c) and d). |
However, it is clear that different sorts of decentralised institutions and local government structures may be better placed to achieve some rather than other of these outcomes – though, the closer local government institutions at any level approximate to classic local government, the more likely that the full range of different efficiency and accountability benefits may actually be achieved.
Again, UNCDF experience suggests that there are some patterns worth recording. The Matrix below illustrates how efficiency and governance outcomes may vary at any given level within a country, using 3 illustrative cases of decentralised institution:
Case 1 – Deconcentrated Committees: District Development Committees in Malawi & Mozambique; Provincial Development Committees in Cambodia; Thana Development & Coordination Committees in Bangladesh
Case 2 – Elected Local Government Bodies with no/weak Executive arm: Union Parishads in Bangladesh; Commune Development Committees in Cambodia; Communes in Mali, Senegal, or Guinea
Case 3 – "Classic" Local Government: District Councils in Uganda; the future District Assemblies in Malawi and Upazila Councils in Bangladesh.
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|
Local Administrative Committee of Line Dept Heads and Other Appointees |
Case 2 Elected
Council |
Elected
Council |
| Greater Scope for Local Democratic Accountability | No | Yes
for Council
No for civil servants |
Yes
for Council
Yes for civil servants |
| Greater Incentives to Allocate Resources for Basic Poverty-Reducing Services | Less likely but easier to translate into inter/intra-sectoral planning & budgeting | More likely – but hard to translate into inter/intra-sectoral planning & budgeting | More likely & easier to translate into inter/intra-sectoral planning & budgeting |
| Greater Information on Local Needs & Variations | Less likely | More likely – but hard to translate into inter/intra-sectoral planning & budgeting | More likely & easier to translate into inter/intra-sectoral planning & budgeting |
| Greater Oversight of Funds & Staff | Somewhat | Somewhat | Yes |
| Greater Incentives to Ensure Operation & Maintenance | Somewhat | Yes – but hard to translate into planning & budgeting | Yes |
| Greater Scope for Inter-departmental coordination of Plans, Budgets & Activities | Somewhat, but depends on powers & both capital & recurrent budget & staff control of Committee chair vs Dept heads; and of Dept heads vs parent Ministries | Somewhat, but depends on relationship with Depts | Yes |
| Greater Scope for Local Resource Mobilisation | No – administrative committees cannot have tax raising powers | Yes – depending on local fiscal powers | Yes – depending on local fiscal powers |
| Greater Scope for Channelling & Piloting Central-Local Fiscal Transfer | Somewhat – but probably limited to development budgets (& no local political lobby for fiscal devolution) | Yes – but probably limited to minor development budgets | Yes – capital & recurrent budgets within limits of assigned expenditure responsibilities |
| Greater Scope for Community Involvement | Somewhat, but if there are democratic or consultative bodies below the Committees | Yes – within the range of responsibilities | Yes – within the range of responsibilities |
Finally, a reminder that a distinct strategic objective assigned to LDFs is their role as piloting mechanism or policy model for the decentralised financing and provision of basic services.
Here, too, the significance of the "pilot" too will vary somewhat by country context, depending on the outcome of the Assessment under A. above. Broadly we can distinguish two polar cases:
- Countries where there is interest in decentralisation in some quarters of government but no well articulated policy commitment. Here the pilot role of an LDF is primarily to show that decentralised mechanisms can work, that infrastructure and services can be effectively delivered, and that funds are not necessarily wasted;
- Countries where there is a clear policy commitment to decentralisation, with legislation enabling local government. Here the pilot role of an LDF is rather to show how decentralised mechanisms can work, by testing and monitoring agreed "micro-policy" options (planning levels, funding formulae or conditions, etc.) in the project area.
