Early in July I attended the first Congress of the United Cities and Local Governments of Africa (UCLGA) in Accra, Ghana. It is the Africa arm of the Global UCLG. It is a forum for Elected Mayors of Cities and Municipalities, Chairpersons of district and Local Councils and other elected leaders at Local level. They compare notes, share experiences, impart on one another on what is working, what does not, what and how they can be done better in delivering services to local people by whose mandate they are exercising power at the local levels.

UCLG is relatively new in Africa having been formed in 2005 with its secretariat based in Johannesburg, South Africa under the leadership of Father Mangaliswo. Many National Associations of Local Authorities in Africa are members of the UCLGA.
The attendance in Accra is a testimony to the growing membership of the organisation.

The congress was not just about the internal institutional affairs of the association: elections of officials and other representatives, administrative and policy matters and the over all governance structure and the politics that go with such organisations. They also had as a broad theme the achievement of the MDGS in Africa.

By the end of this year it would be 8 years since the millennium declaration that was transformed into the MDGs was adopted. It means that we have seven years to achieve these goals by 2015. In spite of the many Doubting Thomases, there has been progress on a number of the goals in most countries including Africa therefore the general pessimism needs to be tempered with the reality of real progress on the ground. When people say MDGs will not be achieved what they are concentrating on are all the goals without giving due credit to significant progress on some of the goals which in some countries may even surpass the minimum targets set in the MDGs.

While 7 years may not be long they are long enough to achieve the goals and even go beyond them in many cases. We now know what makes country Y to progress while country X stagnates. It is a question of political will both at national and local levels.

There is no magic about why some countries succeed and others lag behind. Dr Aisha Karago, the Mayor of Kigali, transfixed the participants with her narration of their experience in Rwanda in general and her empowering role as the Mayor of the capital city. 14 years after ending Genocide, Rwanda is being transformed from the basket case tragedy it once was into a beacon of what can be achieved if you have a focused and visionary leadership. Kigali city is probably the cleanest city in the whole of Africa and should be rated highly in a league of Global cities. Rwanda is the only country in Africa where plastic bags are universally not allowed and it does not matter who you are the rule is applied.

If MDGs are to be achieved the impact will be felt most at the local level. In the past 7 years there is no longer political debate about MDGs. Every country claims they are committed to it. These commitments are strongest in the capital but not percolating fast enough to the local levels.

For Local governments to be truly local it is not enough that they are voted by local citizens, they must be accountable to them. If they are accountable to people, the citizens will defend them against central governments that deny them resources to carry out their functions. However if local people do not get the services due to them and the Local administration is seen as corrupt, insensitive and unaccountable they can not leverage the potential political power of the grassroots.

Devolution is the new song by many governments in Africa but they are not empowering local people or encouraging local accountability. A lot of crucial functions of government including health, education, environment, most of the MDGs, are devolved to the local tiers of government but expenditure patterns and national budgets do not reflect these priorities. Many local governments are cash strapped, generating little or no local resources and never getting enough to deliver on these programmes. Two fundamental shifts are needed if the MDGs are to be delivered by 2015. One, Local governments need to be properly resourced both financially and technically. Two, they need to be truly local by being fully accountable, open and transparent, to the people they serve. Without this they will remain parasitic representatives of the National government at the local level without legitimacy where they are and of little influence with the higher authorities at the national level.

“Forward ever, backward never”… Kwame Nkrumah (1909 - 1972)

………………DON’T AGONISE!…………………ORGANISE!!……………

This entry was posted on Friday, July 25th, 2008 at 10:56 am and is filed under Thursday Postcard. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.