A Study of Local Government in Africa through Participatory Action Research (PAR)

The Western Australian (WA) Public Health Bill will replace the antiquated Health Act 1911. One of the proposed clauses of the Bill requires all WA local governments to develop a Public Health Plan. The Bill states that Public Health Plans should be based on evidence from all levels, including national and statewide priorities, community needs, local statistical evidence, and stakeholder data. This exploratory study, which targeted 533 WA local government officers, aimed to identify the sources of evidence used to generate the list of public health risks to be included in local government Public Health Plans. The top four sources identified for informing local policy were: observation of the consequences of the risks in the local community (24.5%), statewide evidence (17.6%), local evidence (17.6%) and coverage in local media (16.2%). This study confirms that both hard and soft data are used to inform policy decisions at the local level. Therefore, the challenge that this study has highlighted is in the definition or constitution of evidence. SO WHAT? Evidence is critical to the process of sound policy development. This study highlights issues associated with what actually constitutes evidence in the policy development process at the local government level. With the exception of those who work in an extremely narrow field, it is difficult for local government officers, whose role includes policymaking, to read the vast amount of information that has been published in their area of expertise. For those who are committed to the notion of evidence-based policymaking, as advocated within the WA Public Health Bill, this presents a considerable challenge.

We offer evidence that public sector corruption has an inverse association with evaluations of performance at both the local and central government levels. Consistent with ex ante expectations, perceptions of corruption among local government officials are directly and negatively related to performance evaluations at the local government level and relatively less so at the central government level. Conversely, perceptions of corruption among overall government officials have a stronger negative association with performance evaluations of central governments relative to performance evaluations of local governments. These results confirm that individual evaluations of public sector corruption affect perceived government performance evaluations, with local–local, local–central, central–local, and central–central level variances. Regressions by country groups—such as European Union membership, or geographic clusters, such as Southeastern Balkan or the former Soviet Union states—continue to support the core findings with one caveat. Results from two‐level random intercepts and slopes regression models show that the negative association between perceived corruption and government performance evaluation is weaker in contexts with relatively higher levels of public corruption.

Indonesia introduced fiscal desentralisation when the central government enacted Law No. 25/1999 on fiscal balance between the central government and the local governments. This law was later revised as Law No. 33/2004 and is widely known as the ‘new direction of fiscal relationship’ which guides the intergovernmental financial relationship between central and local government in Indonesia (Brojonegoro & Asanuma, 2003; Suharyo, 2009). According to the law, local governments have two major sources of revenues to finance their expenditures: own-source revenues and intergovernmental transfers. Own-source revenues are revenues raised by local governments from their local sources, consists of taxes, levies, proceeds from the management of regional assets set aside for the purpose, and other source of revenues. While intergovernmental transfers consist of Revenue Sharing from natural resources and taxes, General Allocation Funds (Dana Alokasi Umum, or DAU), and Specific Allocation Funds (Dana Alokasi Khusus, DAK). The fiscal desentralisation law established principles on the intergovernmental financial relationship between central government and local governments, which take the forms of devolution, deconcentration, and co-administration of tasks. Through those forms, most authority and responsibility of the central government was devolved to local governments, including the financial responsibility over the provision of public goods and services at local levels. This study examines the arguments in favor of the impact of fiscal desentralisation on the economic development at local levels through the public financing capacity. The methodological approach was qualitative and quantitative modes of inquiry. The analysis on the fiscal budget includes the revenues and expenditures assignments, the trends on the local government expenditures, revenue desentralisation and financing capacity, as well as the roles of intergovernmental transfers within the local budget. This study was undertaken upon the economic arguments on fiscal desentralisation to increase the revenues or fiscal autonomy of sub-national governments (Falleti, 2005) and provides autonomy to local governments in the provision and financing of public goods (Brueckner, 2008). Fiscal decentralisation exists when sub-national governments have powers given to them by the constitution or by legislation, to raise taxes and/or carry out spending activities within clearly established legal criteria (Tanzi, 2000). This study therefore seeks to examine whether fiscal desentralisation in Indonesia increases the financing capacity of local governments, thus promoting local economic development.The results from this study demonstrate that the practice of desentralisation in Indonesia has shown that various reforms have affected the political and administrative system in Indonesia and also the arrangements of authority and financial responsibility between the central government, and the local governments (province and district/city). Under desentralisation policy, the central government gives authority in most areas of governance to local governments. It is however, the central government that retains responsibility for national planning, control on national development, intergovernmental fiscal arrangements, the state administration and economic institutions system, training and human resource empowerment, utilization of natural resources, strategic high level technology, conservation, and national standardization. Such arrangements have changed the mechanism of accountability among central and local governments in Indonesia. Fiscal data analysis performed for provinces, districts and cities in Indonesia indicate that most local governments are still highly dependent on the fiscal transfers from the national governments in performing their public financing functions. As such, the sustainability of local development can be achieved in the long run.

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals Requires Transdisciplinary Innovation at the Local Scale

Thematically this issue centers representation and responsiveness of state entities. The three articles featured offer distinctive methodological approaches to understanding community and representation throughout the diaspora. Our first article “From Complexity to Clarity: A Network Approach to Better Understanding Issues on a Black- Interest Agenda” by Periloux Peay and John Rackey seeks to uncover trends that members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) use to discuss, define, and prioritize issues on their agenda and if they approach these issues as interconnected, multidimensional, and complex. As you read the article please appreciate the detailed social network analysis incorporated to examine the context and effort of CBC members to communicate and identify issues of relevance to the Black community and into an institutional agenda.Our next article by Caroline Hossein moves us through the diaspora to the Caribbean. In “The Legacy of Cooperatives among the African Diaspora: The Cases of Haiti and Grenada”, Hossein explores financial cooperatives in both Haiti and Grenada by using interviews with bankers and individuals to gain deeper insight into the role these institutions play in the lives of citizens. These institutions are significant to our understanding of politics throughout the diaspora because persons who interact with these economic institutions counter similar exclusions that people of African descent in the United States face such as limited access to savings, affordable credit and access to business loans due to limited collateral. Hossein’s research helps us to understand fully that these economic alternatives are based in grassroots community solutions to meet needs that are influenced by politicized economic policy decisions.Our final research article by Rasel Madaha “A study of Local Government in Africa through Participatory Action Research (PAR)” focuses on Tanzania. The Tanzanian government has established new local governments to increase efficiency in the provision of services. By using a case study model, Madaha seeks to understand how the presence of a well-established ruling regime at the local and central government levels tends to ignore the needs of marginalized people in Tanzania. The author’s methodology allows for interview participants to not only inform the researcher of their experiences but to also allow for participants to clearly identify problems for further research exploration. By employing this type of qualitative method Madaha is able to articulate in detail the marginalization of women and the complexity of providing opportunities in agricultural communities.We applaud the outstanding research the authors present in this issue. The articles presented exhibit our mission to explore the international links of African Americans and the diasporic community. We hope that you will continue to see the National Review of Black Politics as a home for your dynamic scholarship.

The study aimed to find out the women’s representation at the local governance level. The paper is a qualitative analysis of participation and challenges of women in local Government in Chitwan, Nepal. This study explored the factors that facilitate women’s access to political and participation in local level governments. This study was based on Interview methods, focus group discussion and key informant interview. The primary information was collected from the 61 elected women who told the story of their journey to political participation and present status at different local level governments. This study was limited within only one Bharatpur Metropolitan City of Chitwan, Nepal. Majority of women lack resources and knowledge of their rights, have to face corrupt political culture and double burden of family role that restrict their effective participation in political processes. Inclusion Policy is the good practices that help advance women’s representation at the local level. The role of family and political parties help in supporting women’s engagement in local politics. The factors to women's political participation that they are mainly linked to low levels of female literacy and training, traditional gender roles and stereotypes, low self-esteem. Women are subject to strong discrimination coming from deeply rooted patriarchal attitudes and practices. There is a widespread belief that the public space is not meant for women and that by nature they cannot be good leaders. These perceptions are stronger in local level politics, making it hard for women to contest and take up leadership positions. The women's participation in local level government has been done to reduce or improve barriers and to analyze the political empowerment of women .

After two decades of the return to civil rule, the not too impressive scorecard of Nigerian democracy has raised concerns and questions demanding answers as to why the country is still struggling with the delivery of democratic governance and dividends such as; social welfare, justice, even-federal development as well as equal access to national resources. The paper inspects carefully, those factors that have and are hindering the success of democracy and democratic governance in Nigeria especially at the local government level. In doing this, related literatures were reviewed while the Structural Functionalist theory is adopted as the theoretical model or frame work and the collection of data was carried out through the secondary source. The study reveals that democracy in Nigeria especially at the local government level has not done up to its expectation due largely to corruption, partisan politics, upper governmental interference, lack of local government autonomy, among others. It therefore recommends that among other things, the local governments should be granted it constitutional autonomy in powers and functions, the fight against corruption should be stretched to the local government areas while Local government officials are made accountable to the local residence and that the leaders should be more ethical in their political pursue

This paper examines the relationship between the policy process for local authority management of air quality and local government initiatives and strategies for carbon mitigation. It seeks to explore the policy and process linkages between the sources of carbon emissions and air quality pollutants in order to assess the potential benefits and/or limitations of an integrated approach for their co-management at a local and regional governance level. Local authorities, as environmental regulators, have a significant role in the UK’s attempts to tackle the problems associated with climate change. This paper describes the extent to which non-statutory management of carbon emissions is undertaken at a local governance level in south west England and examines the extent to which carbon emissions and local air quality management are integrated and co-managed at local and regional governance levels. Results are presented from a questionnaire survey of local authorities in the south west and selected others from England conducted in 2007 and presents interim conclusions.

I was a lecturer at the Institute for Local Government Studies (INLOGOV) between 1970 and 1975. It was the unofficial staff college for senior officers in local government. It had two sides-development studies and British local government. I was in development studies for no better reason than they advertised the job. My research was on British local government. I had never taken a course in development studies, let alone taught such a course to others. I was a fish out of water among "expats" who were colleagues from the Colonial Civil Service; used to display an effortless superiority over the natives, I fear the expats saw me as a native. I did not fit in. My immediate boss was Ken Pickering who ran the division as if he was still a District Commissioner. The flash point was a patronage appointment to a lecturing post. I protested, politely at first, and suggested we advertise. He refused and told me to mind my own business. I became bolshy and appealed his decision to Henry Maddick, head of INLOGOV. It transpired that Henry agreed with me, although he never said so to my face. The job was advertised. Ken summoned me to his office for some name-calling. I was "a snake in the grass." I was on a two-year contract. He

Indonesia: Telling Lies

The local government is one of the vital organs of the state through which programs of development are formulated and implemented for the community. The democratically elected members at the local government level represented the community and advocate the interests of the community in the social and economic development of the area. The research paper has thoroughly described the existing local government system of Pakistan and also has investigated the critical causes of bad governance in the local government system of Pakistan that hinders the social and economic development of the country. This is a qualitative study; the researcher reviewed and synthesized all the available information gathered from the various sources related to the local government governance in Pakistan. The researcher in this research paper used secondary source of information and observations. Since the introduction of parliamentary form of democratic system in Pakistan, the country has gone through number of modifications and amendments in the local government system but due to the instability in the democratic system, the political governments had failed to deliver good public services at the local government levels. The study has identified major causes i.e Political, Social, Administrative and mismanagement of resources and rampant corruption, which have severely paralyzed the governance system at local government level of Pakistan. Keywords. Governance, Local government, District government, Community empowerment. JEL. D73, H10, H75.

BackgroundIn 2005, Nigeria adopted the Reaching Every Ward strategy to improve vaccination coverage for children 0–23 months of age. By 2015, Ogun state had full coverage (100%) in 12 of its 20 local government areas, but eight had pockets of unimmunized children, with the highest burden (37%) in Remo North. A participatory action research (PAR) approach was used to facilitate implementation of local solutions to contextual barriers to immunization in Remo North. This article assesses and seeks to explain the outcomes of the PAR implemented in Remo North to understand whether and possibly how it improved immunization utilization.MethodsThe PAR intervention took place from 2016 to 2017. It involved two (4-month) cycles of dialogue and action between community members, frontline health workers and local government officials in two wards of Remo North, facilitated by the research team. The PAR was assessed using a pre/post-intervention-only design with mixed methods. These included household surveys of caregivers of 215 and 213 children, respectively, 25 semi-structured interviews with stakeholders involved in immunization service delivery and 16 focus group discussions with community members. Data were analysed using the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) vaccine hesitancy framework.ResultsCollaboration among the three stakeholder groups enabled the development and implementation of solutions to identified problems related to access to and use of immunization services. At endline, assessment by card for children older than 9 months revealed a significant increase in those fully immunized, from 60.7% at baseline to 90.9% (p < .05). A significantly greater number of caregivers visited fixed government health facilities for routine immunization at endline (83.2%) than at baseline (54.2%) (p < .05). The reasons reported by caregivers for improved utilization of routine immunization services were increased community mobilization activities and improved responsiveness of the health workers. Spillover effects into maternal health services enhanced the use of immunization services by caregivers. Spontaneous scale-up of actions occurred across Remo North due to the involvement of local government officials.ConclusionThe PAR approach achieved contextual solutions to problems identified by communities. Collection and integration of evidence into discussions/dialogues with stakeholders can lead to change. Leveraging existing structures and resources enhanced effectiveness.

The article considers the main aspects and problems of transforming an educational network in the current context of decentralization. Reference is made tothe urgent need of restructuring the responsibilities in education management between the center and regions providing the latter with independence in finances, organization and management at the regional level. It is emphasized that extending powers of the local executional bodies in management of educational institutions is the primary purpose of decentralization process. There was examined a pattern of decentralizing the basic education in Poland, according to which it was recommended to oblige the local self-government bodies to implement the education politics according to the local needs, finding the school administration and continually appraise the quality of education. It has been observed that currently the essential functions of state in education are assigned to the regional state administrations, regional and local educational departments. The local authorities are burdened with responsibilities of financing and providing the social security for children, defining the network of training institutions, maintaining their records and performing control over their activities. The author points out that at present the local and regional authorities duplicate the functions of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, which is non-effective. The author believes that the local government officials are able to perform political management well up to the officials of educational departments and administrations. However, prior to assignment of new obligations, it is necessary to develop and implement an effective retraining program for personnel and staff of the municipal structures. There have been reviewed the results of the pilot project: «Decentralization: education reforms at the local level», which experts had been analyzed the consistency of educational network. It pointed to the major areas of concern for the education reforms in local communities, namely a significant expense side of budget for education financing, low level of education in rural students according to the data obtained from the independent external assessment, and lack of subject oriented teachers. The author makes a conclusion that the purpose of decentralization in education should be an overall improvement of educational services and be based upon the following basic principles: students’ right to have a free choice of educational institution, equal access to good-quality education services, decent conditions to develop their abilities, improving the quality and efficiency of the educational process, effective use of types of resources.

The article considers the main aspects and problems of transforming an educational network in the current context of decentralization. Reference is made to the urgent need of restructuring the responsibilities in education management between the center and regions providing the latter with independence in finances, organization and management at the regional level. It is emphasized that extending powers of the local executional bodies in management of educational institutions is the primary purpose of decentralization process. There was examined a pattern of decentralizing the basic education in Poland, according to which it was recommended to oblige the local self-government bodies to implement the education politics according to the local needs, finding the school administration and continually appraise the quality of education. It has been observed that currently the essential functions of state in education are assigned to the regional state administrations, regional and local educational departments. The local authorities are burdened with responsibilities of financing and providing the social security for children, defining the network of training institutions, maintaining their records and performing control over their activities. The author points out that at present the local and regional authorities duplicate the functions of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, which is non-effective. The author believes that the local government officials are able to perform political management well up to the officials of educational departments and administrations. However, prior to assignment of new obligations, it is necessary to develop and implement an effective retraining program for personnel and staff of the municipal structures. There have been reviewed the results of the pilot project: «Decentralization: education reforms at the local level», which experts had been analyzed the consistency of educational network. It pointed to the major areas of concern for the education reforms in local communities, namely a significant expense side of budget for education financing, low level of education in rural students according to the data obtained from the independent external assessment, and lack of subject oriented teachers. The author makes a conclusion that the purpose of decentralization in education should be an overall improvement of educational services and be based upon the following basic principles: students’ right to have a free choice of educational institution, equal access to good-quality education services, decent conditions to develop their abilities, improving the quality and efficiency of the educational process, effective use of types of resources. Key words: decentralization, transformation, education, educational system.

The Indonesian government's policy to encourage the involvement of private companies to contribute to renewable energy (RE) projects affects the lives of the local community in the surrounding areas. However, the local community's role in the RE project implementation must be clarified. The study identifies a possible role for the local community to participate in the RE project. It examines the barriers to its participation under the lens of public-private-people partnership. The study was conducted in a mini hydro power plant project in Indonesia. Eight representatives from the village government, community members, and company management were interviewed. The data were analyzed and presented in a descriptive-qualitative manner. The study found that local community participation is needed to manage water as a natural resource for mini hydro power plants. Still, the need for explicit agreement on responsibility and benefit-sharing between the local community, village government, and private companies becomes the barrier to community participation. The findings emphasize the need for formal partnership to specify how local government, private businesses, and communities supposedly develop renewable energy as the basis to involve stakeholders at the local level.