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Author: Resnick, Danielle Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst ISBN: Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 48
Book Description
Since the early 2000s, decentralization has been espoused as a major policy goal of successive Zambian governments. With the passing of the 2019 Local Government Act, a greater understanding is needed of how decentralization has progressed thus far in Zambia and how political economy dynamics have constrained the process. As such, a survey was conducted with 153 bureaucrats across 16 councils in four Zambian provinces, complemented by interviews with elected ward councilors. Three key findings emerge. First, the organizational setting in which councils operate undermines the continuity of service provision. In particular, transfers of staff by the Local Government Service Commission (LGSC), partially driven by the growth in the number of councils in recent years, increases pressure on the wage bill of local authorities, creates uncertainty for civil servants, and undermines institutional memory. Second, the unwillingness to cede genuine autonomy to local councils by the Ministry of Local Government (MLG) repeatedly emerged. A perception of low levels of consultation with council bureaucrats and elected councilors, especially when statutory instruments are issued, reinforce that accountability remains upwards to the MLG rather than downwards to citizens. Third, within the councils, there is a mismatch in incentives between the bureaucrats and politicians that can undermine policy implementation; while the former respect authority and attention to procedures, the latter are focused on constituents’ priorities and may bypass formal procedures to deliver to their voters. Based on interviews with market committees and solid waste companies, these dynamics have negative externalities on citizen perceptions and service provision in urban areas. As one of the few analyses conducted with local bureaucrats to assess their experiences with decentralization, the study aims to advance both policy and scholarship about the political economy dynamics surrounding efforts to strengthen subnational capabilities in developing countries.
Author: Resnick, Danielle Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst ISBN: Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 48
Book Description
Since the early 2000s, decentralization has been espoused as a major policy goal of successive Zambian governments. With the passing of the 2019 Local Government Act, a greater understanding is needed of how decentralization has progressed thus far in Zambia and how political economy dynamics have constrained the process. As such, a survey was conducted with 153 bureaucrats across 16 councils in four Zambian provinces, complemented by interviews with elected ward councilors. Three key findings emerge. First, the organizational setting in which councils operate undermines the continuity of service provision. In particular, transfers of staff by the Local Government Service Commission (LGSC), partially driven by the growth in the number of councils in recent years, increases pressure on the wage bill of local authorities, creates uncertainty for civil servants, and undermines institutional memory. Second, the unwillingness to cede genuine autonomy to local councils by the Ministry of Local Government (MLG) repeatedly emerged. A perception of low levels of consultation with council bureaucrats and elected councilors, especially when statutory instruments are issued, reinforce that accountability remains upwards to the MLG rather than downwards to citizens. Third, within the councils, there is a mismatch in incentives between the bureaucrats and politicians that can undermine policy implementation; while the former respect authority and attention to procedures, the latter are focused on constituents’ priorities and may bypass formal procedures to deliver to their voters. Based on interviews with market committees and solid waste companies, these dynamics have negative externalities on citizen perceptions and service provision in urban areas. As one of the few analyses conducted with local bureaucrats to assess their experiences with decentralization, the study aims to advance both policy and scholarship about the political economy dynamics surrounding efforts to strengthen subnational capabilities in developing countries.
Author: Kandondo Chileshe Publisher: LAP Lambert Academic Publishing ISBN: 9783847315582 Category : Languages : en Pages : 76
Book Description
This study discusses central government grants; showing their effects on local government operational efficiency and effectiveness in Zambia. The Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) government, with a view to improving local government operational efficiency and effectiveness, enacted a new local government Act in December1991, replacing the local administration act of 1980. The study reveals that whilst the 1991 local government Act provides for all local authorities to receive grants from central government, the situation obtaining in Zambia's Third Republic is that the government decided to ignore its statutory obligation to provide funding to councils. Therefore, local councils in Zambia have remained chronically short of money to the extent that they are unable to buy and maintain vital equipment; many of them have been unable to pay salaries and wages on time; and services to the local communities have not been adequately delivered or even not delivered at all. The study has shown that even though stringent measures and various local initiatives have been taken the gap left by non-provision of grants is difficult to be filled by the local authorities' own revenue.
Author: Jimmy Chulu Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 12
Book Description
It has taken so many years now to undertake comprehensive assignment of revenues and assignment of expenditures to the local authorities in Zambia because of non-existence of a sound local government financing framework. Critically, it is naïve to think that local government transfers system is the perfect and finisher to the fiscal constraints faced by councils'. In recent years, the reality to grant fiscal autonomy and authority to local governments since 2002 has however failed to resolve the financing arrangements even when formal decision was made by then Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD) government to implement the decentralization policy. Notably, it is now thirteen (13) years since the decentralization policy was formulated but the process has been slow towards a more comprehensive approach of fiscal empowerment of councils. However, there is no doubt to state that decentralization is essentially a political process and not an end to itself. Obviously, the failure to assign additional revenues to local governments especially those that are not politically difficult to collect and coupled with declining own revenue sources have created enormous problems of fiscal imbalance between rural and urban councils'. In Zambia, fiscal autonomy is not the easiest policy option because assignment of revenues is a very difficult dimension of decentralization reforms regardless of the politics at play.
Author: Christopher Lamonica Publisher: LAP Lambert Academic Publishing ISBN: 9783838310459 Category : Democracy Languages : en Pages : 236
Book Description
Today many African states are formal democracies (in the sense of having governments that are the result of formal elections) but they are not liberal democracies (in the sense of protecting civil liberties and permitting an unhindered alteration of power). They are rather what Fareed Zakaria has termed illiberal democracies. This study explores the impediments to the development of liberal democracy in one such case: Zambia. Following a review of Zambia's pre-independence history and the failure of post-independence decentralization efforts, the study reviews Zambia's recent government reform measures, such as the 1993 Public Service Reform Programme and the 2004 National Decentralisation Policy. Local government policies and finances are also considered in a comparative historical context. The study argues that decentralization is pursued by governments as a mandate of structural reform from international organizations, without adequate attention to the flow of resources to local governments. While indigenous variables are considered the study concludes that the politics of strengthening Zambia's local governments extend well beyond Zambia's borders.
Author: William Tordoff Publisher: Manchester University Press ISBN: 9780299085704 Category : Government business enterprises Languages : en Pages : 338
Author: Resnick, Danielle
Author: Resnick, Danielle
Author: Kandondo Chileshe
Author: Alex Simumba Muzano Kayolo
Author: Zambia. Provincial and Local Government Administration Division
Author: Jimmy Chulu
Author: 
Author: Christopher Lamonica
Author: Zambia. Ministry of Local Government and Housing
Author: William Tordoff
Author: Willem Benjamin Vosloo