Administrative Decentralisation

1. Administrative Decentralisation Harmonisation, Decentralisation and Local Governance

2. Content • What is administrative decentralisation? • Forms • Subsidiarity principle • Exercise • Implementation challenges • Vertical and horizontal coordination • Human resource issues at the local level • Capacity development

3. What is it? Administrative decentralisation is the transfer of responsibility for planning, financing and managing public functions to: • Field units of government agencies • Subordinate units or levels of government • Semi-autonomous public authorities or corporations • Areawide, regional or functional authorities

4. Multilevel governance Administrative decentralisation seeks to redistribute authority, responsibility and financial resources for providing public services among different levels of government.

5. Forms • Deconcentration Shifting decision-making power to central government officials located outside the capital, fully accountable to the center • Delegation Shifting responsibilities to semi-autonomous government bodies or NGOs ultimately fully accountable to the center (service agencies, housing authorities, school districts etc) • Devolution Shifting fiscal powers and decision-making responsibilities to subnational governments in which subnational governments are granted substantive decision-making authority

6. Subsidiarity Subsidiarity principle as starting point for re-organising public functions: Government services should be provided at the lowest level of government that can do so efficiently.

7. Subsidiarity principle European Charter on Local Self-Government, article 4: *Public responsibilities shall generally be exercised, in preference, by those authorities which are closest to the citizen. Allocation of responsibility to another authority should weigh up the extent and nature of the task and requirements of efficiency and economy. * Powers given to local authorities shall normally be full and exclusive. They may not be undermined or limited by another, central or regional, authority except as provided for by the law.

8. Subsidiarity principle in practice • Responsibility for policy and regulation: often central government • Responsibility for financing: local social services most often financed centrally, local economic functions can be financed locally • Responsibility for provision of the service: can often be done by local authorities • Delivery of the service: either local government or private sector 

9. Decentralised service delivery • Functions often devolved to subnational government: • Basic education • Basic health services • Agricultural extension • Rural water supply • Local roads • Urban services (public utilities, sanitation)

10. Finding the appropriate mix • Before defining the most appropriate level of government to perform the service, it is important to carefully analyse the types of decentralisation already present in order to tailor policy plans to existing structures.

11. Exercise Assess the existing forms of administrative decentralisation in the sector you work in. Identify the responsibilities of the various government levels for: - Policy & regulation Financing Provision of the service Delivery of the service

12. Implementation challenges • Shifting of roles and powers between national and subnational government (civil service reform) • Long-lasting institutional relationships destabilised for better or worse • Concerted efforts necessary to coordinate better between units of government • Local challenges for human resources • Capacity support at local level (to assume responsibility for new functions) ánd national level (to better coordinate and supervise)

13. Need for coordination -When national governments decentralise responsibilities, they retain important policy and supervisory roles. - Central government has to promote and sustain decentralisation by developing appropriate and effective national policies and regulations for decentralisation. - Coordination becomes more complicated in case of shared rather than exclusive responsibilities!

14. Vertical and horizontal coordination • Vertical coordination: between different levels of government • Horizontal coordination: across similar levels of subnational (government)

15. Vertical coordination - challenges • How to ensure a certain degree of monitoring of quality of performance without compromising the newly found subnational decentralisation? • How to promote coordination without, de facto, end up facilitating re-centralisation? • Too much perceived ´quality control´ may in the end erode the newly found discretion of la´s. • Plenty of grey areas for interpretation and power struggles.

16. Vertical coordination - solutions • Legal and regulatory framework supported by: • A permanent body with proper representation at various levels to address concurrent coordination issues and to give subnational governments institutional space for defending their interests • Cabinet level actor (like Ministry of LG) charged exclusively with the implementation of decentralisation - across sectors

17. The intermediate level • Decentralisation also has implications for the intermediate government level: • Centre consciously disempowers intermediate levels seen as threats by transferring resources directly to local level, or: • - Intermediate levels are overly favoured, ultimately ending up reenacting the previous paternalistic role of the centre towards local level governments.

18. Horizontal coordination - Subnationalgovernments of the same level whojoin as a group to represent and defendtheirinterests: • Municipalities • Mayorsorgovernors • Chiefexecutives and other professionals • Preferably a broad representation from across the national territory, but also regional associations

19. Horizontal coordination - functions • Share lessons and experiences which might otherwise never see the public light or debate • Lobby to defend and promote wider interests of the collective group vis-a-vis central level • Form partnerships for the provision of local public services • Cooperate on a regional level in developing infrastructure and realising economic development

20. Coordination lessons • When governments opt for decentralisation, they must take into account implications for coordination (if unaddressed: tensions, rivalries and non- performance) • Coordination must also take place between intermediate and local level government (if not intermediate levels left in limbo or local levels at mercy of intermediate level)

21. Human resources Subnational governments having the power to determine terms of services, civil service structures and human resources policies (pay scales, performance based incentives, hiring and firing personnel) are better able to hire a civil service that matches community´s needs and budget constraints.

22. Human resources - challenges • Skewed distribution of human resources because skilled civil servants mostly prefer to work for the more developed areas. • Shortages of skilled people: smaller units of government have less opportunity to build expertise. Exacerbated when responsibilities are diviedd up among smaller jurisdictions.

23. Human resources - solutions • Cadre system in which highly skilled civil servants rotate between more and less developed regions (India) • Sending skilled servants from central government to less developed areas (Ethiopia) • Incentives to people who work in difficult/unpopular areas • Pooling resources for specialised staff or central consultancy services • Other examples from the group?

24. Capacity Development • Subnational levels have to adapt to their newly assigned responsibilities in service delivery • National level has to create conditions, set standards and supervise • National government has to ´let go´ More on this during the afternoon discussion and on Day 4

25. Government bureaucracy

26. Responsibility