Purpose of local government and Decentralization

Decentralization of local government is a very important process for the democratic

development of a country.

Decentralization is defined as the process of political devolution, fiscal and decision-making

from central government to local level.

This transfer of powers to local level makes this important process difficult to realize.

This reform is stretched almost democratization worldwide, mainly in developing countries and
in countries which come from deep political transformations.

Decentralization of power is made to challenge the monopoly of central government decision-

making.

This reform aims to:

• Make a more stable democratic system;
• Increase government efficiency and effectiveness;
• Stimulate the creation of a stable basis for economic development in local and national level;
• Make more transparent governance;
• Involvement of citizens in decision-making.
Decentralization strengthens the principle of transparency and accountability. The principle of
accountability works best at local level, devolution of power makes government more
accountable for the implementation of its tasks. Decentralization also increases the level of
citizen participation in making major decisions and directly affecting the community. As an
integral part of democratization, this process is closely linked with the strengthening of citizen
participation in decision making. The principle of sub solidarity or rule closer to its citizens is the
basic concept of decentralization.

The decentralization process includes 3 levels and 3 dimensions:

1. The deconcentration reduces the volume of work of the center and bring
government closer to citizens.
2. Delegating responsibility and authority sends to perform certain functions
in institutions or semi-autonomous
state agency established locally.
3. The transfer refers to the situation in which central government transfers
political authority, financial and
administrative, quasi-autonomous units in local government.
 Political decentralization refers to the situation in which politic al
authority and powers transferred from
central government to the local.
  Fiscal decentralization implies the transfer of responsibility for
revenue and expenditures from central to
local.
 Administrative decentralization consists in the transfer of aut hority,
responsibility and decision-making
resources for public service delivery by central government to lower
levels of government

Different Forms of Decentralization

The three main forms of administrative decentralization are

 deconcentration, delegation, and devolution. However, delegation and

devolution are, in practice, more widely used while discussing
decentralization.

 Deconcentration refers to a system of government where selected

functions are assigned to sub-national units within sector-specific
national agencies. In a concentrated system, local governments do not
exist as discrete entities, at least with respect to the specific functions
for which central ministries are responsible.
 This means that with respect to those functions, government exists at
local levels in the form of discrete ministry offices, without any local
mechanism for mandatory horizontal integration.
 The effect of this system is to centralise power within central
government. Tanzania for example, adopted this model of
decentralization, after its decentralization Act of 1967.
Central government functionaries were deconcentrated to the regional
and district levels, where democratically elected local councils were
abolished, to be replaced by committees dominated by officials.

 Delegation refers to a system of government where responsibilities for

implementing or maintaining sector investments are assigned to
parastatals and other semi-autonomous government agencies. Such
bodies can in turn deconcentrate responsibility for internal management
and administrative systems to its own sub-national units but this is not
 always guaranteed. In a delegated system, an enormous amount of
power still remains with the central government. This system was a
feature of the former socialist regimes in
Africa such as Tanzania and Ethiopia.

 Devolution refers to a system of government where responsibilities and

functions are assigned to local governments, sometimes with the
necessary resources to carry out these functions. The essence of
devolution is discretionary authority.
 Local authorities have discretionary authority to do what they decide to
do bound only by:
 (a), broad national policy guidelines,
 (b) , their own financial, human and material capacities, and
 (c) , the physical environment within which they must operate.
 This model of decentralization is being experimented with in many
African countries, and is being encouraged by the
donor community.

Difference between decentralisation and local governance

The main differences between decentralisation and local governance are in

the actual actors participating in the process and the mode of interaction
between governments, the private sector and civil society.

Concept Paper on Decentralisation and Local Governance

Decentralisation pertains to public sector institutional and organisational

reforms and processes and the
support thereof, whereas local governance pertains more to supporting the
creation of an enabling environment where multi‐stakeholder processes ‐
including public and private sector, as well as civil society – interact to
foster effective local‐development processes.

This is summarised in below.

Decentralisation Reforms
Support to the formal public sector elements of a decenteralization reforms.

Examples include:

Assistance to central ministries responsible for
reform to develop new policies and legislation.

 Capacity building of local governments for

improved planning, financial management, etc.

 Provision of development funding to local

governments for water, roads, health, etc.

Local Governance reforms


Support to the wider involvement of citizens, NGOs,
private sector in relation to working with and monitoring
local governments.

Examples include:

 Assistance to private sector contractors to

enable them to bid for decentralised works
contracts.

 Civic education and support to CBOs to

strengthen the capacity of local communities to
hold their local governments accountable.

 Support to gender equality and empowerment.

Local governance issues can be pursued even without decentralisation.

However, decentralization reinforces and legitimises local governance
processes when correctly done.

New strategies for supporting local governance include, among others:

Taking fully into account the local cultural and institutional context:

All interventions are carried out in a specific context that greatly affects their
impact.
There are many institutional actors involved and numerous issues to be
taken into account. The experience with the Swiss programme for three
medium‐ sized towns in Burkina Faso is similar to that gained with most
local interventions.

It suggests (a) that sufficient resources should be deployed to ensure

adequate prior knowledge of the context, and

(b) that, as a corollary, key aspects of the local context should be taken into
account in formulating the action strategy.

Increasing levels of participation: the level of information‐sharing

increases local participation and a degree of consultation and contestability
arises from increased levels of local participation in decision‐ making.

Adapt support for local governance to national strategy: Local

development cannot be divorced from its regional and national context. It is
therefore important to link with national authorities and take fully into
account the national strategy when designing measures in support of local
governance.

Such an embedded approach has at least three advantages:

 it makes it easier for de‐concentrated state agencies to provide

technical support to local
authorities,

 it encourages synergy between local‐authority development policies

and sector‐wide policies
formulated and implemented by central government, and

 it encourages local and national authorities to capitalise on, and

share, relevant experiences.

Enhance negotiation and consultation between actors: Negotiation

and regular consultation between actors is critical to the success of
support for local governance, as it enables the actors to agree both
on the goals and on the ways and means of attaining them. It may
also help strengthen actors’ organisational and institutional
capacities and hence their capacity to monitor and evaluate support
 for local governance.

Concept on Decentralisation and Local Governance

Encourage transparency and accountability:

Many different actors are involved in local governance, some

of whom pursue different goals. It is important, in the interests of all
concerned, to cultivate a sense of
responsibility among them all. Creating mechanisms that make those in
charge more accountable for what
they do and that enable the public to obtain clear information from them
may make it easier to follow up
on actions taken by local actors.

Decentralization during the Dergue regime (1974-1991)

Immediately after the Dergue regime assumed power in 1974, it took serious of major
policy initiatives.
The Provisional Military Administration Council (PMAC) introduced the policy of
nationalization of rural and urban land and extra urban houses was put in place by issuing
proclamation No. 47/1975.

Dergue under PMAC and Peoples Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (1987-1991) took three
actions regarding decentralization of the republic:

The first attempt of decentralization was the establishment of Peasant association (PA) in
rural kebele and Urban Dwellers Associations (UDA) in urban areas as lowest local
administrative units.
Peasant association had the responsibilities to administer local land redistribution,
construction of primary school and clinics; provide social justice.

The UDA also had similar responsibilities with exception to engage in land redistribution.
Although the officials or administrators were elected by the people, they did not act on
behalf of the interest of the people but serve as the political arms of the government.
The other unsuccessful decentralization attempts were made in 1987 following the
foundation of the Peoples‟ Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (PDRE) in order to address the
then nationality questions.

The regime tried to curtailed and cool down the political pressure through awarding some
kind of autonomy to those areas which resist the regime ferociously.

Consequently, the Asseb, Eritrea, Ogaden, Dire Dawa and Tigrai areas, which were
characterized as politically unstable areas waging arm struggle either for genuine autonomy
or secession were preferred to be autonomous regions (PDRE constitution, 1987).
Principally, although, these regions were assumed autonomous, in practice, however, were
subordinate to the central government.
And they were expected to realize the implementation of centrally draft laws and directives
in its respective jurisdiction.

It was therefore, clear that decentralization was not the regime’s policy priority to devolve
power down to the regions, but instead it was the reaction for the then political pressure
(the problems of ethnic uprising and political instability).

As a result, the Dergue regime was failed to established genuine decentralized

government, and was not able to address important issues such as fiscal decentralization
and peoples’ power to decide their own social and economic affairs. In addition, the regions
were compelled to implement the centrally designed policies and directives but had no
power to legislate their own law and policies for their own jurisdiction without the
permission of the center.
Again they are also directly accountable to the center than the people they
administer.

Moreover, the regime prefer a monolithic authoritarian centralized government

with single party- worker party of Ethiopia (WPE- recognized as the source of all
powers, and the owners of the constitution),shows lack of political commitment to
give space for popular participation and to have authentic self- governments, failure
to grant significant powers to the regions selected in the one hand and increasing
demand of autonomy on the other hand, together intensified nationality grievances
and finally it succumb for the demise of the regime from power in 1991 .Definition
of the derg regime
The Derg (also spelled Dergue; Amharic: ደርግ, lit. 'committee' or 'council'), officially the Provisional
Military Administrative Council (PMAC)was the military junta that ruled Ethiopia and present-day Eritrea
from 1974 to 1987, when the military leadership formally "civilianized" the administration but stayed in
power until 1991.

Provisional Military Government of Socialist Ethiopia

የኅብረተሰብአዊት ኢትዮጵያ ጊዜያዊ ወታደራዊ መንግሥት (Amharic)

Ye-Hebratasabʼāwit Ītyōṗṗyā Gizéyāwi Watādarāwi Mangeśt

1974–1987

When the Derg took power in 1974 they relabelled the provinces as regions (kifle hager)By 1981 Addis
Ababa had become a separate administrative division from Shewa, and Aseb was split off from Eritrea in
1981, making 16 administrative divisions in tota.  With the exception of Arsi (whose name derives from
the eponymous Oromo subgroup, and which initially included majority-Gurage area later transferred to
Shewa province (becoming Southern Shewa), all of the provinces were deliberately drawn to include
multiple "tribes" (or ethnicities) so as to better facilitate national cohesion.ined that the state would be
subdivided into "autonomous regions" and "administrative regions". Chapter 9 gave to the National
Shengo (the legislature) the power to establish the regions.[5] The Shengo established the regions in
Proclamation No. 14 of 1987, on 18 September. There were thirty regions, consisting of five autonomous
regions, and twenty-five administrative regions.

Derg was established in June 1974 as the Coordinating Committee of the Armed Forces, Police and
Territorial Army, by officers of the Ethiopian Army and Police led initially by chairman Mengistu Haile
Mariam. On 12 September 1974, the Derg overthrew the government of the Ethiopian Empire and
Emperor Haile Selassie during nationwide mass protests, and three days later formally renamed itself
the Provisional Military Administrative Council. In March 1975 the Derg abolished the monarchy and
established Ethiopia as a Marxist-Leninist state with itself as the vanguard party in a provisional
government. The abolition of feudalism, increased literacy, nationalization, and sweeping land reform
including the resettlement and villagization from the Ethiopian Highlands became priorities. Mengistu
became chairman in 1977, launching the Red Terror (Qey Shibir) political repression campaign to
eliminate political opponents, with tens of thousands imprisoned and executed without trial.

By the mid-1980s, Ethiopia was plagued by multiple issues, such as droughts, economic decline and
increasing reliance on foreign aid, recovering from the Ogaden War, and the 1983–1985 famine from
which the Derg itself estimated more than a million deaths during its time in power.

Conflicts between the Derg and various ethnic militias saw a gradual resurgence, particularly the
Ethiopian Civil War and the Eritrean War of Independence. Mengistu abolished the Derg in 1987 and
formed the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia led by the Workers' Party of Ethiopia, with a new
government containing civilians but still dominated by members of the Derg.
 Regional Administration and local government during the derg
When it assumed power in 1974, the Derg only slightly reordered the imperial regime's pattern of
administrative organization at the national level. By contrast, the new regime saw existing local
administration as anathema to the objectives of socialist construction, and its reform efforts were
initially more evident on the local level than in the central bureaucracy.

Immediately after assuming power, the Derg reorganized Ethiopia's fourteen provincial administrations
and replaced all serving governors general. The fourteen provinces (teklay ghizats) were relabeled
regions (kifle hagers) and were divided into 102 subregions (awrajas) and 556 districts (weredas). (By
1981 the number of administrative divisions had increased to sixteen with the addition of Addis Ababa
and Aseb.) The restructuring was a major step toward dismantling feudal privilege.

Moreover, all new appointees were either military men or university-educated individuals who were
considered progressives.

The main charge of these new administrators initially was to promote development, and the
maintenance of law and order was considered only of secondary importance. Despite the commitment
to rural development and to the staffing of regional administrative positions with young, dynamic,
educated people, not much could be done to accelerate the process of change. Field bureaucrats had
few resources to work with, their staffs were small, and their budgets were committed almost
exclusively to salaries. By the mid-1980s, the relief and rehabilitation contributions of foreign private
voluntary organizations in some cases made more resources available at the local level than did the
regional administrations.

After having concentrated on a gradual transformation of the state's administrative structure, with the
promulgation of the 1987 constitution the Mengistu regime prepared for a further reorganization of
regional administration. Hence, at its inaugural session, the National Shengo enacted a government plan
for the administrative reorganization of regional government.

As a result, twenty-five administrative regions and five autonomous regions were created.

The autonomous regions consisted of Eritrea (broken further into three subregions in the north, west,
and south), Aseb, Tigray, Dire Dawa, and Ogaden. The change promised to alter significantly Ethiopia's
traditional pattern of administrative organization.

If the plan were to be fully implemented, this reorganization would have required a dramatic expansion
in the government and party bureaucracy. Relatively new institutions, like regional planning bodies,
would have been eliminated and replaced with new planning agencies in the various regions. Some
observers suggested that this plan was initially endorsed to pursue a Soviet-style approach to the
nationalities problem. They argued that the regime was trying to organize regional administration along
ethnic lines. Consequently, this reform had little positive effect on enhancing the regime's legitimacy
and in fact limited its control over the general population.
The primary organs of state power at the regional level were regional shengos. These bodies were
responsible mainly for implementing the central government's laws and decisions. Regional shengos
could draft their own budgets and development plans, but these had to be approved by the National
Shengo.

Regional shengos also possessed some latitude in devising and enforcing local laws and regulations and
in electing local judges. By the summer of 1989, however, regional shengos had been elected in only
eleven of the twenty-five newly designated administrative regions and in only three of the five regions
designated as "autonomous."

Peasant Associations
"Cash for Work" project sponsored by United Nations Children's

Fund and the Ethiopian government. Courtsey United Nations Children's Fund (Bert Demmers)

Peasant association meeting. Courtsey Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (F.
Botts)

During its thirteen-year existence (1974 to 1987), the Derg worked to spread administrative reform
down to the lowest echelons of regional administration.

Kebeles
In July 1975, the Derg issued Proclamation No. 47, which established kebeles, or urban dwellers'
associations, in Addis Ababa and five other urban centers. Organized similarly to peasant associations,
Addis Ababa's 291 kebeles possessed neighborhood constituencies ranging from 3,000 to 12,000
residents each. Like the peasant associations in the countryside, the kebeles were initially responsible
only for the collection of rent, the establishment of local judicial tribunals, and the provision of basic
health, education, and other social services in their neighborhoods. Kebele powers were expanded in
late 1976 to include the collection of local taxes and the registration of houses, residents, births, deaths,
and marriages.

During the height of the Red Terror (see Glossary), kebeles were responsible for ensuring neighborhood
defense. Neighborhood defense squads patrolled their communities day and night and sometimes
operated outside the control of the central authorities. Many brutal excesses were attributed to kebele
defense squads between 1976 and 1978, but they were more closely monitored thereafter.In April 1981,
the Derg issued Proclamation No. 25, which provided kebeles with extended powers and a more
elaborate administrative structure. According to this new structure, the general assembly, composed of
all kebele residents, was empowered to elect a policy committee, which in turn was authorized to
appoint the executive committee, the revolution defense committee, and the judicial tribunal. At the
time of this proclamation, there were 1,260 kebeles in 315 towns.

The government estimated national kebele membership in the late 1980s at 4.4 million. The All-
Ethiopia Urban Dwellers' Association (AEUDA) linked kebeles throughout the country. This
organization's bureaucracy extended, in layers that paralleled the central bureaucracy, down to the
neighborhood level. However, as in the countryside, the WPE had become the most important
political institution, capable of overriding decisions taken by kebeles as well as by peasant
associations.

Following the demise of imperial rule, the feudal socioeconomic structure was dismantled through a
series of reforms which also affected educational development. By early 1975, the government had
closed Haile Selassie I University and all senior secondary schools, then deployed the approximately
60,000 students and teachers to rural areas to promote the government's "Development Through
Cooperation Campaign". The campaign's purposes were to promote land reform and improve
agricultural production, health, and local administration and to teach peasants about the new
political and social order.[6]

Primary school enrollment increased from about 957,300 in 1974/75 to nearly 2,450,000 in 1985/86.
There were still variations among regions in the number of students enrolled and a disparity in the
enrollment of boys and girls. Nevertheless, while the enrollment of boys more than doubled, that of
girls more than tripled. However, with most of the rebel controlled northern Ethiopia regions as well
as parts of Somali and Oromo regions out of the government's control, most of its claims were not
perceived to be comprehensive.

The number of senior secondary schools almost doubled as well, with fourfold increases in Arsi,
Bale, Gojjam, Gondar, and Wollo. The pre-revolutionary distribution of schools had shown a
concentration in the urban areas of a few administrative regions. In 1974/75 about 55 percent of
senior secondary schools were in Eritrea and Shewa, including Addis Ababa. In 1985/86 the figure
was down to 40 percent. Although there were significantly fewer girls enrolled at the secondary
level, the proportion of females in the school system at all levels and in all regions increased from
about 32 percent in 1974/75 to 39 percent in 1985/86.

Among the PDRE's successes was the national literacy campaign. The literacy rate, under 10 percent
during the imperial regime, increased to about 63 percent by 1984.

In 1990/91 an adult literacy rate of just over 60 percent was still being reported in government as
well as in some international reports. As with the 1984 data, it several wise to exercise caution with
regard to the latest figure. Officials originally conducted the literacy training in five languages:
Amharic, Oromo, Tigrinya, Wolaytta, and Somali. The number of languages was later expanded to
fifteen, which represented about 93 percent of the population.

A number of countries were generous in helping the PDRE meet its health care needs. Cuba, the
Soviet Union, and a number of East European countries provided medical assistance. In early 1980,
nearly 300 Cuban medical technicians, including more than 100 physicians, supported local efforts to
resolve public health problems. Western aid for long-term development of Ethiopia's health sector
was modest, averaging about US$10 million annually, the lowest per capita assistance in sub-
Saharan Africa. The main Western donors included Italy and Sweden. The UN system led by UNDP
and including such agencies as FAO, UNESCO, UNICEF, UNIDO, UNFPA and WHO, continued to
extend assistance as they had to the Emperor's regime. In the early 1980s, at least one UNDP
representative, a former minister in a Caribbean country, had the credibility to get access to
Mengistu, and may have moderated his excesses in some instances. The World Bank also continued
to provide assistance during his rule doubtless recognising the surprisingly conservative and prudent
fiscal discipline the regime tried to follow.

The twenty-five administrative regions were.

Addis Ababa
Arsi
Asosa
Bale
Borana
East Gojam
East Harerge
East Shewa
Gambela
Ilubabor
Kefa
Metekel
North Gonder
North Omo
North Shewa
North Welo
Sidamo
South Gonder
South Omo
South Shewa
South Wollo
Welega
West Gojam
West Hararghe
West Shewa