Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
The State: Reform of the State Bureaucracy and Building Capacities for Decentralization Alex B. Brillantes Jr
1. To reform the state, its institutions and processes is a gigantic but critical and difficult task if we are to sustain the gains brought about by democratization and transitions from authoritarian to open and democratic regimes. 2. Equally important is the fact that the imperative to reform state bureaucratic institutions and processes is also in response to the need to improve the quality of lives of the people and address the ever present problem of poverty that is prevalent in the Third World today. 3. Decentralization must therefore be viewed as a strategy that may be adopted to address the twin challenges of strengthening democratic institutions and reducing poverty in the third world. It is therefore imperative that the capacities to design, implement and sustain decentralization must be high in agenda for reform of centers of government. 4. It is within the context of the above that many interrelated issues and concerns have to be addressed by efforts to reform the state bureaucracy. These include the following: To what extent should central government authorities adopt decentralization as a strategy to transfer powers, authorities, responsibilities, accountabilities and answerabilities to lower level institutions within the context of opening up institutions and making then more accessible as part of the overall process of democratization?
1/13
2/13
customized training programs. However, towards the overall objective of rationalizing the whole decentralization process, central authorities must exercise a role that they must legitimately and morally play: that of coordinating and orchestrating the various development efforts and interventions in the country.
3/13
4/13
function," it is important to determine what functions and responsibilities should be transferred, i.e., "decentralized," to local authorities. This is very much dependent upon the basic services that may be best delivered at the local level, ranging from health to social services to agriculture to infrastructure to "localize" them and make them more responsive to the unique needs of the people. The other dimension of capacities is one that pertains to fiscal capacities. In other words, it is equally important to determine the sources of financial resources and revenues at the local level that are critical to finance the delivery of basic services. For instance, to what extent are local governments dependent upon financial transfers and grants from the national government? How are such fiscal transfers computed? Is there a set formula? How do the factors of population and land area come into the computation of the fiscal transfers? Are other factors considered in determining the transfers to local governments? For instance, is the extent of deprivation (or poverty) of local governments - due in part to their distance from the capital (as they do in Australia through the Grants Commission), or being isolated as in the case of island local governments, considered in the determination of their share from the national government? Is performance considered? Here, performance may be determined by the extent to which the local governments have collected taxes. It may also be determined by the people themselves through a report card system. (For instance, Bangalore, India has developed some kind of a citizens report card on the performance of the local government.) Finally, it is important to determine other resource generation schemes at the local level that may be available to support the delivery of basic services at the local level, in particular, and good governance, in general. This may be where strategies to harness the energies of the private sector may come in. Examples may be in the area of joint ventures with the private sector, entering into build-operate-transfer arrangements, and
5/13
6/13
7/13
orchestrate and monitor the decentralization process. Included among the members of this oversight committee were representatives of the local governments through their associations and leagues. This sub-committee will address the inevitable transition-related decentralization problems, such as status of personnel transferred from the national to local governments, the bases for the computation of fiscal transfers to specific local governments, and even areal and boundary related issues and concerns. The idea is to have a mechanism (preferably, as suggested above, a cabinet level-subcommittee body where local governments are represented, say through their associations or leagues) constituted specifically for the task of addressing decentralization related issues and concerns. However, it is still the COG that will have final responsibility for the adoption and implementation of the overall decentralization strategy of the stage as part of the reform process. 12. With the general goal of supporting good governance , international organizations and agencies operating can play a key role to support - and thus increase the probability of success of public sector reforms through decentralization. Support for decentralization processes may be imbedded in the country operations strategies, or country assistance strategies, of international donor and financial institutions as they support strategies for good governance. For instance, international institutions such as the United Nations development Programme (UNDP), World Bank (WB) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and international donor / aid agencies such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID) and the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), all have support for good governance as central in their country operations
8/13
9/13
Lessons Learned for Devolution Implementation: Drawn from studies on the experiences of other Countries
Establish National Decentralization Committee to monitor status of decentralization and local fiscal condition
Clearly assign expenditure functions among levels of government Allocate adequate local revenues and enhance local collections Improve equalization impact of inter-governmental grants Develop local accountability
Ammar Siamwalla in a rural development study for the Asian Development Bank
Prepare the process carefully Consult extensively Formulate the plans precisely Commit politically without reservation Implement quickly Finance adequately
10/13
Leonardo Dayao in assessing the Governance and Local Democracy (GOLD) of the USAID
Stakeholder participation is a function of method not time. Decentralization is more constrained by centralized model than by local capability. The local is responsive and capable.
Complex planning is overrated as a condition for success. Conventional needs assessment tend to skew planning and analysis towards conventional solutions.
Expect that national government agencies operate mainly on the basis of anecdotal information about local governments
Emphasize organizational development not individual skills Governance is being redefined at the local level
Meaningful decentralization cannot simply be legislated. Professional rule-based bureaucratic and fiscal systems are critical for effective governance at all levels.
The character of local-central relations and balance of initiative change with new issue agendas.
Where local administrative capacity is inadequate to handle a nation's policy needs, it can be nurtured.
11/13
The LG system can be useful for reducing regional disparities, experimenting with policies to address new issues, and incorporating new participants into the political process.
Shared growth, through redistributive measures and local responsiveness to diverse interests can help legitimate democracy.
Local democracy can promote governmental effectiveness by creating feedback channels to policy makers.
Capacity building should be high in the priority of the agenda for local governance.
Through the Leagues, local governments have become more assertive and effective in articulating LGU concerns over the past ten years.
Local Governments have recognized the value of inter-local cooperation and collaboration.
Local governments have begun to increasingly enter into partnerships and collaboration with civil society.
12/13
Awards Programs are instruments in disseminating and encouraging good, and best practices, at the local level.
Globalization issues and concerns are concerns that are being increasingly addressed by local governments.
Devolution in the Philippines is ready to proceed to the next logical step: federalism.
13/13