Can decentralisation promote pro-poor development planning systems?

Can development planning close the gap between high level strategic thinking and the local level context? How can national poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs) complement the decentralisation of development functions? Are local government officials sufficiently sensitive to development needs? How can we judge the successes and failures of decentralisation processes?

A report from Scott Wilson Kirkpatrick & Co grew out of DFID concerns that development interventions are either too narrowly focussed on projects or deal with policy in the broadest terms. Lessons are drawn from recent case studies of decentralised planning in three sub-Saharan African states.

The report notes that decentralisation is never free from risk:

• There is no guarantee that its apparent benefits (allocative efficiency, responsiveness, revenue maximisation and accountability) will be realised.
• Local elites may capture the process.
• Lower tiers of government may have a limited capacity to mobilise local financial resources (or may be unwilling to do so).
• Corruption may be harder to detect under weak administrative systems.
• Top-down planning may continue in another guise.
• Professional staff may be unwilling to live in remote areas and those who are available may be poorly trained and unmotivated.

South Africa’s Integrated Development Plans may not have achieved their initial aims but they have helped local governments to come to terms with their developmental responsibilities. It has become clear that it takes time to cultivate an understanding of development issues among councillors and officials. The voices of local stakeholders (especially the poor) are easily left out. Participation has not necessarily led to pro-poor outcomes.

Zimbabwe’s Integrated Rural Accessibility Planning approach supports the democratisation and empowerment of communities. It is user friendly and easily implemented, even when local capacity levels are low. Though originally employed to assist in the planning of transport services in rural areas, it generates data of use for other development sectors. It is clear that the capacity of local technical staff to empower communities needs to be developed. Participatory approaches and technical assessment may be in conflict with the preferred interventions of local political elites.

Ethiopia’s Decentralised Woreda Level Planning has been instigated in the country’s four biggest ethnic regions. NGOs could play a greater role in supplementing the capacity of local government to use participatory methodologies, but these do fall outside their mandate. While the initial phases of the planning process are participatory, local voices get lost in successive policy drafts. Planning methodology is shaped by local top-down approaches which regard participation as a means of obtaining information.

Development planning systems have the potential to contribute to poverty alleviation and be a vehicle to pull together priorities voiced in PRSPs and the needs of local communities. Getting there requires:

• development of adequate capacity at all levels of government, within civil society and in local communities
• reduction of the current dependence of local government on national funding mechanisms
• ensuring that the development planning process needs to be taken into consideration by local government and associated stakeholders and funded from its own revenue base
• recognition that tangible results are needed if political interest in decentralisation is not to decrease
• putting in place mechanisms of accountability between local authorities and users of their services.

Source(s):
‘Decentralisation and development planning: some practical considerations’, Department for International Development (DFID), by Tim Hadingham, January 2003 Full document.

Funded by: Department for International Development, UK

id21 Research Highlight: 16 October 2003

Further Information:
Tim Hadingham
Scott Wilson Kirkpatrick & Co Ltd
Scott House
Basing View
Basingstoke RG21 4JG
UK

Tel: +44 (0)1256 461161
Fax: +44 (0)1256 460582
Contact the contributor: Tim.Hadingham@scottwilson.com

Scott Wilson Kirkpatrick & Co Ltd, UK

Other related links:
'Decentralisation revisited: behind the rhetoric of local natural resources management'

'Making the connection - decentralising the management of health information in low-income countries'

'Knowing me, knowing you: decentralising health care in Brazil'

'Measuring pro-poorness: does decentralisation help the poor?'

'Responsibility without power – decentralisation of primary healthcare in Chile'