DeLoG (2007) Alignment strategies in the field of decentralisation and local governance. A review of country practices and experiences.

This desk study provides an overview of development partners’ support to decentralisation and local governance.  The study looks into issues of management of decentralisation processes, coordination and harmonisation, alignment and the use of aid modalities.

The survey carried out in 2006 covered 7 organisations’ and countries’ assistance and presented basic information of each organisation’s mandate, internal organisation structure and approaches to decentralisation support including their individual strategy papers.

The consolidated findings can be summarised as follows:

1)The analysis of the institutional arrangements for the management of the decentralisation reform process, in particular with regard to the leadership role within government for the process, the implication of core stakeholders and the interrelation of the management structures for the decentralisation process with the arrangements for the management of a broader public administration reform reveals a number of challenges and constraints for successful decentralisation and coordinated and harmonised DP support to decentralisation and local governance. Over the last years, decentralisation and local governance have increasingly become integral elements of the overall national development strategies, in particular the PRSP, and local government reforms and decentralisation strategies have been launched along side core public sector reforms. However, decentralisation is in most countries still treated as a separate sector and the effective recognition of decentralisation as a cross-cutting issue relevant to all areas of development is yet to come. The most important findings from the country studies can be summarised as follows:

• Government commitment to decentralisation as cross-cutting issue is essential.
• Successful decentralisation reforms require high-level political advocacy
• Political character of the decentralisation process make it vulnerable to changes in government

2)Current practices are still very heterogeneous and that the coordination mechanisms are far from fully developed.Existing mechanisms range from informal groups meeting irregularly and focussing on exchange of information to highly formalised set-ups with clearly defined roles, rules and responsibilities both on the DPs as well as on the partner countries side. The country studies analysed the DP coordination mechanisms in the four countries with regard to their degree of formalisation, their mandate and the actors involved. The studies furthermore assessed the effectiveness and performance of DP coordination mechanisms in the field of decentralisation in view of harmonising aid modalities and aligning DP support to partner country strategies. The findings from the country studies can be summarised as follows:

• Similarity in overall set-up of coordination mechanisms, but considerable differences with regard to degree of formalisation and mode of operation
• Government leaderships essential for effective coordination
• Efficiency of coordination mechanisms between partner governments and DPs related to scope and substance of dialogue
• Commitment of DPs to coordination mechanism strongly dependant on headquarters policy regarding harmonisation and alignment
• Weak vertical and horizontal integration of coordination mechanisms focusing on decentralisation and local governance with other coordination mechanisms.
  

3) There are still a multitude of individual projects supported by different DPs that are not necessarily aligned to one national framework. Even if general strategies are in place and have been widely recognized as the relevant framework for alignment, the lack of comprehensive national reform programmes and national systems and procedures to which the DP support can directly relate to hamper the alignment.

4) Support to decentralisation and local governance follows different modalities and points of entry in its approach. This refers to the funding modality (budget support, basket funding and programme/project support), to the entry level (national or local) as well as to the different partners (central or local government, civil society, others) involved in programme management and implementation. The country studies analysed how the use of various entry points by DP in their support to decentralisation and local governance reinforce or weaken country decentralisation reforms.