EC advanced seminar DLG 2012_Session 4.2 SYNTHESIS OF THE SEMINAR

The seminar brought together over 40 participants from 25 different EU Delegations and Headquarters to discuss during 3,5 days the issue of support to decentralisation and local governance.  

The seminar provided an opportunity to explore what it means for the EU to support decentralisation in a post-Busan context/Agenda for Change context. it also attempted to better understand what works, what does not work and why in EU support to DLG and to foster the co-production of knowledge.  The outcomes of the seminar discussions will feed into EC policy and also contribute to idenitfying needs for operational guidance. 

 Participants reached a consensus on the following overarching ideas: 

1.  Decentralisation is not good or bad, it is about how a state is designed and organised
2.  Decentralisation should not be approached dogmatically
3.  The question should not be whether donors should support decentralisation or not, but why?  
4.  Decentralisation should not be confined to the good governance agenda.  
5.  Decentralisation should not be approached from the aid modality angle.

Four key messages emerged from discussions:

 MESSAGE 1:  A change of perspective is needed:  The open-approach which regards decentralisation as a system is particularly useful to understand its complexities.  Decentralisation is fundamentally a political process of state building and state reform.  It is also a multi-level process of institutional (re) construction, and can potentially contribute to build new societal compromises.   However, it is important to bare in mind that decentralisation is driven by political motives, not developmental goals.  It may also be driven by strong men's desire to legitimate their power. Decentralisation may also be driven by elite's desire to access and control productive resources at the local level, or as a means to consolidate their power at the local level.  But once these objectives are achieved, elites too often will have no will to pursue fiscal and political reform. Decentralisation is often promoted by development partners

MESSAGE 2:  The EU can and should meaningfully engage in hostile environments and decentralisation arenas.  External agencies should be ready to provide strategic support to domestic change actors.  However, there are many questions regarding the legitimacy, effectiveness and credibility to intervene.   

MESSAGE 3:  The EU should be ready to revise outdated intervention strategies and appraoches.  It became clear that there is still a tension between on the one hand, the "believers", who rely on a formalistic, normative approach and see decentralisation as an "end" in itself, and on the other hand the "pragmatic", who rely on a more analytical and factual approach and see decentralisation as a "means" to achieve development goals.  The key question is therefore: what is the added value of decentralisation?  To answer this question it is important to look into the different entry points (not mutually exclusive) whereby decentralisation can serve developmental purposes - local economic development, state reform, service delivery, state-citizen interaction.  Donors should also accept that decentralisation and state reform processes are not short term and linear, predictable processes, but long-term processes determined by history, geography, geology, ethnicity, etc... and driven by vested interests... 

MESSAGE 4: The EU (and other donors) need to be better equipped if they want their support to be effective.  This requires that the EU invests in new knowledge and using PEA and other tools, clarifies its vision and objectives, is ready to support long term transformation processes rather than ad-hoc interventions, and is prepared to play new roles and to put policy dialogue at the center.  This will require that donors are also ready to revisit their organisational and procedural architecture in order to ensure consistency.  They will also need to increase tolerance for risk.  Unless this is done, donors will fail to be consistent with their political commitments and development stance.  The key principles for smart support to decentralisation include: 

1. Start from context: the reality is at it is, not as it should be.
2. Define your vision and ensure political will, then choose the aid modality accordingly
3. Review levels of ambition, be realistic of what can be achieved
4. Accept that donors rythm is not always suitable to accompany endogenous reform processes.  Adopt a long-term perspective and an incremental approach to change
5. Be ready to adjust when the initial plan is not working or when unexpected opportunities arise
6. Be creative

During the seminar, it became clear that these principles have already been applied by some EU Delegations.  The EUD in Ghana and Madagascar shared some important lessons to succeed in supporting decentralisation and local governance:  

• Facilitate multi-actors dialogue to gain traction
• Build consensus around necessity of reform!
• Identify champions of reform; build alliances
• Don’t bypass local authorities even if they are weak
• LG in driving seat, give them the money, let them learn by doing
• Trial and error approach – turf risk analysis, risk tolerance, risk management.
• Money is not enough, address issues at the political level, use ideas to gain leverage

However, participants also acknowledged that donors continue to be largely driven by a results oriented agenda that focuses on showing value for money.  Strategies need to fit into short term programming cycles, and the focus is generally on short-term outputs, instead of outcomes and impact.  This puts pressure on donors to go quicker than the process itself. In addition, donors still have difficulties in overcoming their desire to plant a flag and show attribution.  All these factors increase the risk of doing harm to endogenous, fragile processes.  

The seminar ended with several questions: is the EU (and other donors) ready to embrace complexity?  Is the EU ready and equipped to provide the right incentives for state reform?  Are donors ready to put domestic dialogue processes at the center and articulate their own dialogue with the government and other actors around domestic national processes independent from their support? Is the EU ready to take more risks? Is the EU ready to better articulate policy and political dialogue, as a means of ensuring that EU external action is more efficient, political, visible and coherent?