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Decentralisation: not necessarily always a good thing?

Decentralisation is in vogue and not just in multi-party democracies. Military dictatorships, one-party states and even authoritarian monarchies have signed up. Amidst this enthusiasm, is there empirical evidence that decentralised regimes are more likely to be pro-poor, responsive and transparent? Have decentralisation and democratisation been naively conflated?

A study from the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) surveys a wide range of developing countries to assess whether decentralised forms of governments are engaging with the needs of the poor. It stresses the need to analyse the complex typologies of local-central relations, for decentralisation is never technically neutral. States go down the decentralisation road for many reasons. Apparently similar decentralisation policies can have diametrically opposed purposes, whether to reinforce vested class or ethnic interests in existing patterns of patronage or, far less commonly, to draw down the resources and authority of central government in support of local struggles for justice.

Amidst this diversity, the report acknowledges the difficulty of measuring the responsiveness of decentralisation, but suggests some signposts. How many people actually participate? Are they representative of the entire population? Have the incomes of the most vulnerable or deprived groups improved? Has income inequality been reduced? Has poor people’s access to health, education, sanitation or justice improved? Has there been inter-regional distribution of resources?

The report compares a large number of decentralised forms of government across the world, focusing on ten countries and two Indian states where data on the performance of decentralised governments was most informative. [It measures ten national governments and two Indian states against these criteria.] Only West Bengal comes out well in a review which finds most decentralising governments lack an ideological commitment to pro-poor policies, do not respect local autonomy and are unwilling to tackle entrenched elites.

Key findings include:

Decentralised governance is unlikely to produce more pro-poor governmental performance unless there is strong support for pro-poor policies and progressive groups at the local level from central (or state level) government. West Bengal, and some Brazilian states are some of the few examples of this benign combination, mainly due to the role of leftist party organisations. In West Bengal, democratic local governments played a key role in agrarian reform and provision of developmental infrastructures, benefiting the poor.
The introduction of elected local government has failed to encourage participation in systems where local government has a bad record or there is no tradition of electoral politics.
Local elected governments in many countries have been neither representative nor spontaneous, but contrivances of an entrenched ruling party or newly-established military regime desperate to secure a rural power base.
Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Bangladesh, Kenya, Nigeria and Mexico are particularly strong examples of unaccountable decentralisation processes which have not helped the poor.
In Brazil decentralisation in the impoverished north-east has weakened the traditional patron-client system but has been less successful elsewhere in the country. Scope for federal government intervention to tackle the country’s enormous regional wealth disparities has been reduced by decentralisation.
A consistent pattern of ‘elite capture’ of elected local governments.

If central policymakers are sincerely to implement pro-poor decentralisation they should:

Earmark secure funding and ‘ring fence’ allocations from general taxation to lowest tiers of government.
Have the political will and capacity to prevent hostile local elites from sabotaging programmes.
Build capacity and morale of local administrations.

Source(s):
‘Decentralisation and poverty-alleviation in developing countries: a comparative analysis or, is West Bengal unique?’ Institute of Development Studies, Working Paper #130, by Richard C. Crook and Alan Sturla Sverrisson, February 2001 Full document.

Funded by: Department for International Development, UK

id21 Research Highlight: 23 February 2002

Further Information:
Richard C. Crook
Institute of Development Studies
University of Sussex
Falmer
Brighton BN1 9RE
UK

Tel: 44 (0) 1273 678276
Fax: +44 (0) 1273 621202 / 691647
Contact the contributor: richardc@ids.ac.uk

Institute of Development Studies (IDS), UK

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