Dr. Falendra K. Sudan
Decentralized development is central issue in development planning. India has experimented with decentralized development through local self-government. The constitutional rights of the local communities have always been main focus of decentralized governance. The welfare of local communities has been an integral part of development planning. Despite all the efforts, the local communities have been left outside the ambit of development gains. The local communities are trying to take advantage of the decentralized development interventions. The progammes for empowering the local communities have often bypassed and ignored their aspirations. Their participation in development is not effective. The poor section of the rural community is left out of the development initiatives. Numerous promises of their involvement in the decision-making process have been made in recent past. Despite these, the development programmes unfortunately still exclude them from effective involvement.
As a result, the local communities still remain marginalized. The decentralized development programmess have not been effectively implemented. It is desirable that no significant social and religious group is left out of the ongoing development process. This is possible only when socio-economic development indicators of local community matches the national averages. This needs to be widely understood and appreciated by the polity and the state. The rationale behind the decentralized development interventions for welfare of local communities calls for unveiling a robust strategy.
Benefits of decentralization
Democratic decentralization is considered vital for overall development. Decentralization leads to improved governance and better delivery of development interventions. It helps improve livelihoods and poverty alleviation of the targeted groups. Decentralized development leads to transparency in policies. It ensures responsiveness of the policy makers. The accountability of implementers is also assured. The openness and greater flow of information reduces corruption. Decentralized development is frequently recommended as a means to enact and deepen democratic governance. It improves administrative and service delivery effectiveness. This is a bottom-up process. This is closely associated with local community empowerment. The local stakeholders, capacities, and resources are mobilized for collective action.
Local governance and jurisdictions constitute the institutional focus of the bottom-up approach. The successful decentralization is whether and how community empowerment interacts with local governance. Community empowerment helps decentralization. Decentralization moves governance closer to the people. Community empowerment moves it closer still. Decentralization concerns politics and power. It is also concerned with technocratic efficiency and effectiveness. It makes the political process more tangible, transparent, and participatory and power sharing. It counteracts the monopolization of power by certain elite groups.
A decentralized development system is also more accessible to local communities in their attempts to influence development and politics. This is more important in ethnically divided societies. Economic and political exclusion can have seriously polarizing effects. Decentralized development promotes economic and political inclusiveness. It may also have important conflict-dampening effects. This can be an effective means of enhancing state capacity. In developing countries, the centralized state apparatus has in many instances proved to be poor at implementation. The state proclaims several things, but barely reaches down to the masses. The organs of the state are often regarded with detachment and contempt.
The legitimacy of state agencies may be considerably boosted by the greater involvement and influence of poor people. This tends to strengthen the state’s capacity for implementation and effectiveness of development interventions. The local decision-makers are better placed to formulate concrete policies. Local functionaries are more able to accommodate local demands by tapping local knowledge to find local problems and possible local solutions. Moreover, the local participation makes policy implementation easier. Decentralized development system can function as an open market. However, decentralized development also has potential drawbacks. For instance, to uphold certain rights and services uniformly across the country, a centralized political and administrative state structure is normally needed.
Strategies for successful decentralization
Central government can do much to control local development interventions. This is done by laying down specific criteria for choosing local programmes for empowering the local communities. Central government endorses local budgets and specific development interventions to empower local communities. Therefore, local authorities enjoy only limited autonomy. Central government can intervene ex ante to influence the recruitment of local personnel. This strategy deprived local authorities of an important source of patronage. It may create troublesome tensions between central government and local power-holders.
Central authorities try by various means to supervise and monitor development interventions targeting local communities. This, however, is not an easy task. The supervision of local development interventions from the above is seldom efficient. Reliable information is often lacking. It is difficult to find out the development gaps. New information systems are needed to trace economic transfers. At the same time, economic transactions are only one side of the problem. Promoting good performance is highly needed.
Strong work ethics can make a big difference. The official appreciation of good performance is another way of boosting the work-spirit. The general public is needed to be informed of the goals of decentralized interventions. There is need to increase the awareness among potential beneficiaries. This is done to generate valuable popular support and to facilitate the operation of the programme. This will tends to further the work-spirit of the stakeholders. In addition, it will also be easier for the stakeholders to exert control.
In order to bring sustainable decentralized reforms, a process of change must take place in the local community. Central government can facilitate such a development through mobilizing and empowering the local community. Involving local stakeholders with an independent responsibility for accomplishing certain activities may mitigate the drawbacks of centralized governance. However, the local stakeholders often have their own policy agenda. They are likely to divert the development programmes for their own ends. This will be detriment of the community at large. To overcome this, it is vital to inspire the local actors and the intended beneficiaries to become part of the process.
Information dissemination is necessary to bring knowledge about ongoing development interventions. The members of civil society could be encouraged to become involved in the process. A strong organizational life can certainly be a great asset. It can strengthen society’s capacity for holding decision makers accountable. However, vested power structure is mainly interested in preserving the status quo. Thus, decentralized reform-minded groups must be roped in to take part in the process. Sometimes such groups do not exist at all, or are poorly developed. Under such conditions there is need to establish new organizations of reform-minded local stakeholders.
(The author is Professor, Department of Economics, University of Jammu, Jammu)
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