Public Sector Reform & Decentralisation

Brussels, August 31^st. 2020.   When it comes to solving day to day problems, mayors are perhaps one of the most experienced authorities dealing with issues faced by the population. This is why, as every year, the European Commission organized this July the latest edition of its Global TALD Seminar.  This year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the impossibility of participants to travel to Brussels, the Seminar took place virtually through a web-based platform.  The aim of the Seminar was to help EC staff in European Union Delegations (EUDs) and headquarters (HQs) to have a better understanding and contextualization of the Territorial Approach to Local Development (TALD) and how to identify and formulate actions aimed at promoting it.  After three TALD seminars, the TALD vision was reflected in the EC’s programming cycle for the period 2014-2020 in both thematic and geographic budget lines. It was now time to look towards the next EU’s Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) and see how to include the topic in the future budgetary cycle towards 2027.

At the heart of the Seminar was the question of how to integrate and mainstream local authorities, decentralization and related topics in EC funded programs and projects, in bilateral, regional and sectoral programming. The large range of participants from +30 countries included sector experts, governance specialists, heads of cooperation and project managers from EUDs as well as EC HQs. A limited number of representatives from associations of local authorities (both at the global level as well as their members) and other relevant stakeholders were also invited so as to make the debates richer and ensure networking for better cooperation in TALD.

The Seminar took place over 4 days and was organized in four main thematic blocks. The first block was dedicated to the topic of Decentralization and territorial development: Local authorities as drivers of change. An introductory lecture focused on the importance to speak about territorial development in the context of globalization, that has mostly triggered inequalities and social disparities across the world.  The concept of decentralization was then introduced with a brief historical and analytical approach to political vs fiscal decentralization and its three most common types: devolution, delegation and deconcentration as well as their shortcomings.

One of the highlights of the Seminar was a panel discussion dedicated to analyze how local authorities have been frontline actors in the response against the COVID-19 pandemic. The session included the intervention of Fernando Straface, Secretary General and Head of International Affairs, Autonomous Government of the City of Buenos Aires, Argentina; Greg Munro, Secretary General, Commonwealth Local Government Forum, United Kingdom and his Excellency Mohamed Sadiki, Mayor of Rabat, Kingdom of Morocco.

The panelists analyzed the challenges and opportunities posed by the COVID-19 crisis to decentralization and the territorial approach to local development through 3 main guiding questions: To what extent have local authorities being able to align their response/recovery priorities against COVID-19 to those established by central government? Will COVID-19 become the preamble for a new era of stronger or weaker decentralization policies?

Can the pandemic be an opportunity to foster a stronger territorial approach as a means to a safer, more sustainable and more equitable local development?

The panelists highlighted that while the world struggles with the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the response has been managed by central governments, and particularly by national health authorities. In many nations, the need for a coordinated and decisive response has brought about new trends towards re-centralization, with national authorities overtaking control and sometimes even surpassing sub-national authorities in their legitimate and legal competencies.

In parallel, cities and local authorities have had to react and act in urgency, innovating with increasingly limited resources and coming up with creative solutions for situations affecting the daily lives of citizens in areas never imagined.  As many of the social and economic consequences of the pandemic, and its related confinement, are expressed locally, mayors and local authorities are working on a myriad fronts that include regulating use of public space, public transport, local business, distance education, infected waste management, health risk, informal settlements, resilience, etc.

In developing countries, local authorities face the pandemic against a backdrop of multiple existing and emerging vulnerabilities, like the lack of reliable data, adequate funding, and municipal capacities. However, as they respond to and manage the current pandemic, many have already started preparing and thinking about what comes after, emphasizing the need to create a pathway towards a greener and more resilient recovery.

The rich debate surfaced a set of key ideas:  a) the need to support and enhance local leadership in COVID-19 response, b) the need to coordinate with other levels of government, whether intermediary or national, c) the importance of realizing that this is no time for politics or partisanship; authorities must work together against the pandemic and d) when local authorities are involved the response to the pandemic works better. Decentralization should thus be considered the new normal.

The second thematic block of the seminar was focused on the concepts of territory, TALD and its building blocks.

In TALD, a territory is more than a colored perimeter in a map, it is about how a place functions and how it is socially constructed with an aim in mind. Examples of this kind of territories were shared, like the Central American dry corridor, the metropolitan region of Bordeaux in France, the greater urban-rural area of Harare in Zimbabwe, among many others.

The concept of TALD was introduced in contrast with the traditional concept of local development, presenting it as “the missing link” between decentralization and the expected results of development policies.  A discussion was engaged with some participants on the difference between TALD (a bottom up approach) and the current trend towards the “localization” of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (a top down approach).  The difference is that TALD is an endogenous process, not imported, that aims at spatial integration and is driven through a multi-stakeholder approach.  A thorough analysis about who drives TALD was conducted, A matrix of 5 criteria was established to assess the role of each type of 4 actors (central governments, civil society organizations, for profit sector and local authorities) looking at their local mandate, leadership, responsiveness, legal capacity and institutional presence.  In a participatory way, the session applied the matrix and concluded that no other actor is better placed to drive TALD than a local authority.

Participants were able to learn about the so-called TALD Building Blocks which constitute the basic elements that need to exist in order to promote this model. Three types of building blocks were introduced: a) Enabling national policies; b) Adequate sub-national institutions and capacities and c) Improved local management systems.  In order to exemplify these concepts a case study from the project OCEAN (Organizational Capacity, Enhancement and Networking) in Sri Lanka was presented. The project was a successful way to englobe behind a TALD approach different topics like gender violence, electoral transparency and promotion of a culture for constructive political dialogue in Sri Lanka.

Thematic block 3 was dedicated to understanding TALD in the context of EU cooperation and to answer the following questions:  How can the identification/formulation of EU actions support TALD processes and/or promote locally led TALD processes in partner countries? What are the opportunities and constraints that EUDs may face in promoting TALD? How can an EUD assess the level of maturity to work with TALD in a given country?

After a rich debate, the Seminar presented current EC practice to deliver support through three channels with the corresponding examples:  a) support to national decentralization policies, b) inclusion of local authorities in sectoral aid and c) place-based interventions with direct implication of local governments as main beneficiaries.  Two specific case studies were presented to illustrate this: a project to support national decentralization policies in Mozambique and the Eurosan project in Honduras, aimed at strengthening food security and nutrition in 39 municipalities.

The final thematic block of the Seminar was dedicated to present the so-called TALD toolbox: concrete modalities, roadmaps and HQ support to TALD.  A rich discussion was engaged amongst participants on the different kinds of concrete tools that an EUD can use to dialogue and work with cities and local authorities, as well as the right mix of aid modalities to partner countries. The Seminar ended with a final reflection on future next steps to promote TALD processes in some countries, in the context of the future EC programming cycle for the period 2021-2017.  All documents from the Seminar can be found here.

By Eugene D. Zapata Garesche - Team Leader.  Facility and Helpdesk: Territorial Approach to Local Development. European Commission’s Directorate General on Development and Cooperation (DEVCO) Unit C5:  Cities, Local Authorities, Digitalization and Infrastructure.