Collaborative Governance and the Implementation of Fiscal Responsibility Frameworks

Local governments, like their central government counterparts, must demonstrate increased fiscal responsibility. Although the Jamaican finance ministry has overall responsibility for direction and control of fiscal management at all levels of government, successful implementation cannot be achieved solely by the finance ministry's efforts, but requires the inputs of other actors, including central government, local authorities, the private sector, and civil society groups. This chapter examines the strategic use of collaborations among local authorities and other stakeholders in the implementation of fiscal management policies, in particular revenue-raising efforts in Jamaica, a small island state. The study examines relationships/partnerships (collaborative governance) focusing on the actors, structure, and processes in the implementation of fiscal policy reforms in local authorities. It finds that deliberate efforts must be made to manage complexity arising from overlapping networks with unclear boundaries and fluidity in participation and leadership.

Women's Political Empowerment

Political participation by women is central to development and the empowerment of all citizens. This chapter argues for the recognition of opportunities for women in leadership, political participation, and the strengthening of democracy at the level of subnational governments. A key reason for focusing on gender equity in political life is that women constitute slightly more than half of the world's population, and they contribute to the social and economic development of all societies to a greater degree than men because of their dual roles in the productive and reproductive spheres. At the same time, their participation in formal political structures and processes, where they can contribute to decisions on the use of societal resources generated by both men and women, remains far below parity. Drawing examples from a range of national parliaments and countries, this chapter demonstrates lessons for increasing political participation by women in subnational governance.

Operation Sukuma-Sakhe

This chapter explores the emerging new social contract that connects government departments, communities, civil society, and the private sector through Operation Sukuma-Sakhe (OSS) in the Province of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), South Africa. This program is designed to expedite service delivery and development by addressing communal challenges such as poor or non-existent service delivery and lack of coordinated government programs and cooperative governance efforts. Social contract theory forms an analytical and conceptual framework to gauge the government's commitment through the OSS program in delivering decentralized services in partnership with communities and other development sectors. The effective functioning of OSS depends on the full and equal commitment of government, underpinned by a new social contract with other departments, the community, and citizens as both recipients and agents of decentralized service delivery. Primary data sources were interviews with OSS regional officials, supplemented by documentary data from the literature and state and local government sources.

Political-Administrative Interface at the Local Sphere of Government with Particular Reference to South Africa

The ongoing political-administrative dichotomy discourse, which is steeped in public administration history, manifests in uncertainty about how the relationship between politicians and administrative officials should be structured. South Africa was democratized in 1994 and local government has subsequently undergone a fundamental socio-political transformation. “World class” local government legislation, with an entrenched constitutional development mandate, was introduced; however, the large numbers of public protests bear ample testimony to major challenges in basic service delivery. A critical issue impacting negatively on the functionality of the post-1994 local government dispensation is the political-administrative interface. The National Development Plan has mapped out a socio-economic vision to 2030, with stabilization of the political-administrative interface a priority. Consequently, the political-administrative interface has to be critically reviewed relative to the quality of local democracy, impact on efficient and effective service delivery, and good local governance.

Public Financial Management and Systems of Accountability in Sub-National Governance in Developing Economies

There is an increasing focus worldwide on improving the quality of public financial management, with many countries in both the developed and the developing world making important and impressive achievements in strengthening public financial management and governance. This chapter explores how subnational government financial management can be improved and capacity strengthened in developing economies. Using Ghana's subnational financial management and accountability system as illustration, this study shows that improving public financial management leads to better quality of public services. The subnational government landscape is rapidly changing, with increasing emphasis on fiscal management and discipline, prioritization of expenditure, and value for money. It is even more important that international donors, governments, and national and local institutions, including regulators and professional accountancy bodies, work together in partnership to achieve long-lasting improvements, transparency, and accountability in public financial management.

Fiscal Responsibility and Multi-Level Governance

Public-policy assumptions regarding sub-national governments' financial behavior are based on economic rationality. Therefore, to achieve fiscal stability at the macro level, central governments use fiscal rules both to constrain the behavior of local policymakers and to resolve deficit/debt biases. Using the Italian fiscal governance system as an illustrative example, this chapter considers both the tensions derived from achieving fiscal responsibility at the national level in a decentralized environment and the difficulties of maintaining adequate performance at the local government level. It is argued that the public management perspective can be helpful not only at the micro level but also at the macro level in developing public policies to promote fiscal stability. It is suggested that public policy should adopt a more holistic approach toward fiscal responsibility in multi-level governance environments. Such an approach requires a deep understanding of the determinants of financial viability of public sector organizations.

The Subnational Region

Most states worldwide possess two or three levels of government, from national to provincial and localities. Subnational governing arrangements are emerging in response to widespread decentralization, globalization, and urbanization, with this level increasingly considered the ideal spatial scale for effectively harnessing governing capacity. Yet regional governing arrangements often lack the traditional statutory and administrative governing tools of the state. Instead, they tend to rely on voluntary co-ordination and co-operation. Emboldened with more traditional governing tools, provincial and local states can work against these networks to protect their own power. This case study of Sydney, Australia, examines the dimensions of hard and soft power in a regional governing network and the role of provincial and local actors in determining the prospects for regional governance. In the absence of state-like mechanisms of hard power, the soft power on which regional governing networks rely will likely remain inferior for the governing task.

Infrastructure Governance at Sub-National Level

Although infrastructure-dependent services are increasingly provided through subnationalised forms of authority, the current discourse largely focuses on financing challenges at national to regional scales. This macro outlook of infrastructure governance assumes that, once central government agencies have drawn partnerships with intergovernmental counterparts, followed by financing to subnational agencies, municipal authorities will be in a position to implement projects that respond to the differing needs of urban residents. This obscures the multi-layered nature of infrastructure governance at municipal level intercepted by gender differences in end-user needs across urban sectors. The chapter presents the challenges faced by Kampala city in Uganda, in the context of not only formalized infrastructure governance, but also non-statist forms of authority and informal practices that give center stage to the agency of men relative to women in altering local service provision dynamics to the benefit of their needs and expectations.

Politics-Administration Relations and the Effect on Local Governance and Development

This study explores the politico-bureaucratic dynamics within the local government of Bangladesh, focusing on the policy role while explaining the governance role of politicians and bureaucrats. Particular emphasis is placed on the politics-bureaucracy relationship and its impact on local governance and development, given that the nature of this relationship and the appropriate role of political leaders and administrators have been the subject of considerable debate. During the last two decades of democratic governance in Bangladesh, politicians have been the dominant forces in governance due to their role in aggregating interests and values; however, bureaucrats are similarly influential, given their role as initiators and implementers of policies. The bureaucracy has emerged as a dominant institution in both local and central governments. The bureaucracy is directly or indirectly involved in partisan politics, which negatively impacts local governance and development.

Integration, Innovation, and Intimidation?

Local governments find themselves dependent on co-operation, not only with other levels of government but also with a range of non-governmental actors. New actors, drawn from the private sector, civil society, and technocratic élites, have become involved in the governing process and interdependencies have grown. Various approaches have been implemented to link the third sector and government, and various conceptualizations and analyses have emerged. This chapter explores strategies to involve the third sector in local government in Ireland. Ireland makes for an interesting case since it depicts an example of a state-designed system for formally integrating the third sector in the reformed structures of local governance. It provides insights about the theory and practice of subnational governance and generates transferable knowledge about the impact of nationally directed strategies to integrate the third sector with government. It also offers suggestions for further research on such linkages.