Development Induced Decentralisation: A typology of decentralisation for developing countries

A close examination of decentralisation process in developing countries comes about as a result of ‘declining legitimacy’ and the reduced participation of citizens in government. (Escobar-lemmon, 2006). Escobar’s study reveals that the push for decentralisation is geared towards winning more support from citizens and assuring them that decentralisation will bring more opportunities. However this view is being challenged where shifting the responsibilities from central to sub national bodies without financial resources to meet those responsibilities, can lead to not only local underdevelopment but the tendency for central government to exert more control. (Falleti G, 2005. p. 343)

Many scholars have made series of attempt in the conceptualisation of decentralisation under an administrative and political context. This reflects the variation of interpretations of the concept though they generally point to the assumption that it transfers legal and political authority from central government to sub-national, local and regional organisations and agencies. (Ng’ethe, 1998, p. 5).

As it becomes a buzz word of development practitioners, various actors, social and political, and both politicians and policy makers, international finance institutions and academics have generally tended to argue that decentralisation can also lead to high degree of participation and political accountability, fiscal and administrative efficiency. (Borja et al. 1989; Cabrero Mendoza 1998; Calderon and Dos Santos 1991; FIEL 1993; Garcia del Castillo 1999 and Wiesner Duran 1992).

One can deduce from the above arguments of decentralization, that the challenge of decentralization is accountability which is assumed that centralization of governance has done very little to be accountable to majority of its citizens either directly (as in democratic or political decentralization) or indirectly (Via the central government, as in administrative decentralization or deconcentration). But the question is why this being has so? The Musgravian approach in mainstream economics indicate some of the arguments for and against centralized system of government. This approach seeks to answer the question of what levels of government that is best suited to deal with the three primary economic problems of public finance such as equitable distribution of income, the maintenance of a stable economy and the allocation of resources in an efficient manner. (<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Roy</st1:city></st1:place>. R, (year unknown) p.1).

The Musgravian approach put forward two proposition. Firstly, “that the state intervention to resolve externalities (including scale economies) and other such market failures require a unitary governmental framework. The lower the externalities of public good provisioning, the lower the incentive for centralization.” The second is “that lower levels of government are more sensitive to the individual preferences for public good provisioning than are higher levels. If externalities are held constant then decentralized provisioning is preferable, a result that would expect from the neo-classical paradigm where the aggregate of individual economic choices with the complete market is utopian, as it is Pareto efficient and Pareto Optimal”. (ibid. p. 2)

A development-induced decentralization springing from the process of local community-driven development is assumed to be more sustainable to the extent possible that it is allowed to go through a certain process of metamorphosis.

THE AFRICANS IN AUSTRALIA-BY LAWRENCE T. UDO-EKPO (1999); Seaview Press South Australia

"The Africans in Australia" is the first book to be published by an African since the migration of Africans into Australia. Udo-Ekpo's initiative to document the complex migration experiences of Africans to a far land such as Australia is one that needs commendation.

Obviously, it was an enormous task for Udo-Ekpo given the fact that many reports and surveys have been conducted, published on refugees from Africa by community of practice organisations in most states in Australia. This meant that most of the issues discussed would have had some critical analysis elsewhere.

Therefore in my view, I think an important contribution made by the book is firstly, the retelling of the issues by an African author and in the process validating other sources. Secondly, I think that the book makes an important contribution in chapter nine which looked at how Africans have been portrayed to a very large extent negatively in the Australian media. However, a more objective contribution would have been one that looks at why some of the images portrayed by the media are not representative of the population of Africans.

As an African academic, my unfair expectation is that he would have engaged more with the negative stereotypes with an aim of exposing the untruths of some of these dominant images of Africans.

Chapter six "Africa Imagined" documents some of the past experiences of Africans interviewed for the book. This is an attempt to examine how the African culture whatever it is disintegrates as more and more exposure to the'Australian' way of life or 'Western' hegemonic culture takes precedence. This chapter explains how some migrants become marginalised in both cultures. He relays the quotes of some African migrants who went back for a visit to Africa only to realise that they had forgotten some of the cultural practices due to a long absence from home. In Australia, these same people consider themselves Australians only as a legal status and do not feel as much. This bears relevance to how migrants and people all around the world live 'documented lives' separating the 'legal person' from the 'real person'.

Conclusively, the book is worth reading as the language used is extremely reader friendly for most Africans who Udo-Ekpo would have had in mind in his crafty writing of the first history of African migration by an 'African of both the blood and soil' to use Ali Mazrui's concepts.

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Development Induced Decentralisation: A typology of decentralisation for developing countries

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