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Governments urged to help strengthen local authorities
Nairobi 6 April 2005 – Meeting under the auspices of a formal
United Nations dialogue at the twentieth session of UN-HABITAT’s
Governing Council, national and local government representatives discussed
new ways of strengthening local authorities around the world.
At a plenary meeting chaired by the newly elected President of the Governing
Council, Mr. Petr Kopriva, Permanent Representative of the Czech Republic
to UN-HABITAT, senior government officials and representatives of world
local authority organizations debated a set of new draft guidelines prepared
by the Advisory Group of Experts on Decentralization (AGRED).
Delegates were told that effective decentralization is an essential principle
of good governance and is linked to democracy and social economic and
political development. The guidelines should be seen as an instrument
to for the implementation of decentralization. The moderator, Professor
John Loughlin of Cardiff University, said the guidelines were flexible
and adaptable to the variety of political, state and administrative diversity
across the world. They were not a blueprint to be applied rigidly everywhere.
Participants included Mr. Musikari Kombo, Minister of Local government,
Kenya; Mrs. Greta Billing, Deputy Director General, Department of Local
Government, Norway; Mr. Bernard Hoarau, Chief, Local and Urban Development,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, France; Mr. Joan Clos, Mayor of Barcelona,
who serves as president of both United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG),
and the United Nations Advisory Committee of Local Authorities (UNACLA);
Ms. Rosalinda Valenton-Tirona, Permanent Representative of the Philippines
to UN-HABITAT; Mr. Yves Ducharme, Mayor of Gatineau, Canada, and former
President of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities; Senator Ernesto
Gil Elorduy, President of Global Parliaments for Habitat, Mexico; Dr.
Heinrich Hoffschulte, Vice President of the Council of European Municipalities
and Regions (CEMR).
Mrs. Billing set the tone of the meeting when she said that participatory
democracy must be promoted so that the governed could have a sense of
ownership. Giving an example of her country, she said there had been established
good rapport between local authorities and the central government. She
said the model could be replicated elsewhere since it had shown good results.
However, a participant from India said each country needed to develop
its own model of decentralization arguing that each country was unique
in its own way. “For example, what may have been successful elsewhere
may not necessarily be successful in India. We have a unique country with
hundreds of millions of voters and we are multi-cultural and multi-religious,”
he said.
Similar sentiments were shared by a delegate from Antigua and Barbuda
who said that for decentralization to be effective, local leaders had
to be elected by the people. The culture of appointing such people led
to cronyism and corruption because they would owe allegiance to the powers
that appointed them, he said.
There was recognition of possible political obstacles to realizing effective
decentralization. First, there were obstacles of a political nature, where
centrally elected politicians are often reluctant to devolve power to
other spheres of governments. In order to overcome this, there is needed
a strong political will on the part of central governments to support
and implement decentralization. Second, there were obstacles of a societal
nature such as corruption, which was seen, as a challenge to decentralization.
Steps were needed to address this problem.
Attention was also drawn to problems such as the great disparities in
size between countries such as India and Indonesia with hundreds of millions
of inhabitants, and small countries such as Austria and Norway. It was
emphasized that the guidelines that take these differences into account,
but that the underlying principles of decentralization remain the same.
They said youth concerns had to be given greater priority in the guidelines.
A delegate from Philippines said there was need to strengthen the capacity
of local authorities in terms of staff and finances. Philippines had enacted
the Local Government Code of 1991 which provides for funding from the
central government to the local bodies.
Mr. Clos hailed the plenary saying it was unprecedented. He said mayors
often complain that there is lack of support from central government,
although they were committed to decentralization. “Mayors support
decentralization because they want better governance and it is also a
way of dealing with the many problems besetting local authorities,”
he said.
A participant from the Russian Federation cautioned that decentralization
must be accompanied by strong monitoring mechanisms, while Mayor Ducharme
of Gatineau, Canada, said decentralization was crucial because local authorities
were the closet form of government to the people.
A representative from Dubai Municipality raised the issue of the city’s
unique position in that only 15 percent of the inhabitants were citizens
while the rest were migrant workers. He wanted to know whether such migrants
could be allowed to vote in local government elections.
In response to some of the issues raised, Mr. Hoarau of France said his
government was keen on lending support to the proposed observatory on
decentralization. Another area of interest to the French government was
strengthening capacity to ensure sustainability and a campaign to see
more finances flowing to the local authorities.
Kenya’s Minister for Local Government Mr. Kombo said central governments
were concerned that despite the money poured into local authorities, the
quality of service delivery was still not satisfactory. The minister said
the bodies needed to have their priorities right pointing out that in
Kenya, the authorities were always looking for ways to get salary increments.
Delegates were invited to present written comments on the draft guidelines.
For further information, please contact: Sharad Shankardass,
Spokesperson & Head, Press & Media Relations Unit, or Ms. Zahra
Hassan, Media Liaison, Tel: (254 20) 623153, 623151, Fax: 624060, E-mail:
habitat.press@unhabitat.org,
Website: www.unhabitat.org
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