Yaoundé 2003 – the Africities Summit
Media Advisory
Media Contact in Yaoundé:
Adam Rogers (237) 971 1289
Yaoundé, 4 December 2003 – The Local Governance Unit of the United Nations Capital Development Fund has taken an active role in this year’s Africities Summit in Yaoundé, Cameroon.
The Summit, which occurs every two to three years in a different African city, is considered by many to be the most important platform of dialogue on decentralization and local development ever organized in Africa. This year’s Summit, the theme for which is Ensuring Access to Basic Services in African Local Governments, has brought together more than 2,000 local and central government representatives from throughout Africa to share experiences and ideas on local government policy and the case for decentralization.
Professor Akin L. Mabogunje, advisor to the Nigerian President, told the packed opening plenary that although much development emphasis is placed on urban areas, the rural areas of Africa are often characterized by abject poverty and suffering – thereby contributing to a rural exodus. “Not providing services to rural areas causes urban problems,” he said.
UNCDF Deputy Executive Secretary Henriette Keijzers, who is in Yaoundé for the Summit, echoes Mabogunje’s concern. She said that although many of the discussions at the conference tend to concentrate on the challenges confronting urban local governments, it is also important to keep the rural realities in focus.
To help accomplish this goal, UNCDF has brought a dozen local government representatives to the Summit from four of its programme countries in Africa: Mali, Senegal, Ethiopia and Uganda. It also has launched a comprehensive review of decentralization in these countries, comparing the various approaching taken in support of local government reform. The report, titled Local Government Initiative: Pro-poor infrastructure and service delivery in rural sub-Saharan Africa, highlights the challenges that local governments have to grapple with in their struggle to meet the needs of their constituents. The report and accompanying case studies will be available on UNCDF”s website as of 20 December 2003.
As a follow-up to the Summit, UNCDF plans to consolidate a Casebook on both the African and Asian contexts where UNCDF has gained significant experience over the past decade in working with local governments to improve the delivery of local infrastructure and services.
Financing and Delivering Services in Rural Local Governments
On the third day at the Summit, UNCDF hosted a special session on Financing and Delivering Services in Rural Local Governments. More than 130 delegates participated in the four-hour discussion, which included presentations of UNCDF local governance programmes in Senegal, Mali, Uganda and Ethiopia. Following the participatory session, a list of recommendations was presented to the Conference Secretariat, for distribution amongst participating governments. Following is the full text of these recommendations:
Recommendations
Despite rapid urban growth, most of sub-Saharan Africa’s population continues to live in rural areas. For that reason alone, local government in rural Africa – and its capacity to deliver public goods and services – merits both investment and interest. Moreover, it is in the rural areas of Africa that the poorest live and where the greatest challenges for poverty reduction exist – focusing on poverty reduction in Africa almost invariably implies the need to pay special attention to the rural dimensions of poverty. If local government in rural Africa is to be relevant, accountable and thus deliver appropriate services, then, it must also face up to the challenges of poverty reduction.
There is a greater challenge in supporting local governments to be participatory, responsible and effective in rural Africa than in the urban environment. In fact, we are starting to understand that rural development, local economic development and the reduction of poverty all benefit from the provision of infrastructure and services by local governments for local communities.
The participants of the UNCDF session at the Africities conference
have recommended the following:
General Recommendations:
- There should be more and deeper inquiry related to the transperency, accountability and the responsibilities of local government.
- More actions are needed to promote local economic development,
directed by and based on local demand for public investments.
Specific Recommendations:
1. To central governments
A transfer of human and financial resources should always accompany the transfer of knowledge.
- Capacity building programmes at the local level is needed, particularly concerning legislation and regulatory frameworks related to local management.
- A greater and improved connection between the various central government sectors (education, health, etc) with local policies is needed.
- An equitable, local system of taxation, avoiding an unnecessary burden on the poor, such that which results from regressive taxation systems that taxes communities by the number of people.
- Systematic gender mainstreaming is needed in all decentralization programmes, including the allocation of specific budgetary resources.
2. To local governments and their associations
- All public investments should take into account recurrent costs and current revenues.
- Local planning should always be linked with available budgets
- Poverty reduction strategies at the local level should emphasize capacity building for local government personnel and elected leaders, to improve leadership skills and new approaches to local economic development.
- There is a need for more political dialogue between local and central governments that addresses national poverty reduction strategies.
3. To development partners
- There should be more sharing of experiences to promote improved harmonization of development methodologies and the way development programmes are implemented.
- More development resources should be directed towards the poorest areas.
4. To the Municipal Development Partnership (MDP)
- More consideration should be given to the needs of rural local governments.
Links
News
- Cameroon hosts Africities ( News24, South Africa)
- Summit on bringing basic amenities to Africans opens in Cameroon (Channel News Asia, Singapore)
- Annan Urges Conference to Make African Urbanization Sustainable (AllAfrica.com)
