We thus see that the decision to adopt the centralised rather than the devolved ap-proach depends on the context at the time, which is understandable. The swing from the trend towards centralisation to the trend towards devolution and vice versa has occurred across the world over many decades. This debate about the merits of either approach continues and extends into many fields. The recent global financial crisis has stimulated opposition to centralisation, particularly where the state has been susceptible to influence from particular business interests, rather than pro-moting the common goal. Another contemporary example is the current debate concerning the European Union, which is seen by some member states as having too much centralised power.
Governments devolve in order to make service provision more effective, efficient and accessible. The accepted view is that it is better to devolve, as the ‘local people’
have a better understanding of priorities and issues for the development of their lo-cality. The same also applies to the centralisation of authority – governments un-dertake this because they want to improve services and hasten the progress of de-velopment (Kathyola and Oluwatoyin 2011, Oluwo and Wunsch 2004). Essentially the underlying rationale for devolution and centralisation are the same: to attain improvements in organisational management and strengthen governance for en-hanced service provision. There are several issues to be considered when adopting either approach; I outline some of these below.
The first issue is avoiding conflicts of interest and ensuring that the ‘big national picture’ is not missed. Local authorities tend to develop an inward-looking perspec-tive, missing the ‘big national picture’ and/or failing to look beyond their boundaries.
The lack of the ‘big national picture’ perspective of a nation’s development can mean that national strategies and policies may be overlooked or even rejected by local authorities. This localised focus can be compounded by politics. If pushed too far, devolution has elements of market-led philosophy, thus diminishing the concept of a common national goal.
For example, the rise of democracy will result in increased political competition, thus spurring a market-led approach by politicians who respond to demands from
their own constituents. This is understandable, given that each local authority’s im-mediate concern is its locality, and its constituents are primarily concerned with is-sues that directly affect their everyday lives. However, this can result in conflicts between local and national interests, as local authorities miss a crucial connection between a local problem and a national issue. An example of an insular perspective is when a locality is suffering from poor access to market for its produce, leading the local electorate to continue short-sightedly pushing for improved roads in their lo-cality. However, if their elected member of parliament were to join with other mem-bers representing neighbouring constituencies to push for an improved national road to a major outlet, then more local people would benefit.
Another example of a conflict between local and national interests in a coffee pro-ducing country such as Tanzania is a national policy to encourage the export of coffee by removing the tax on coffee exports. However, some local authorities may impose a crop cess on coffee, thus counteracting the intent of the national policy.
The questions which must be evaluated to avoid conflicts of interest and an insular perspective include:
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■ Can the local authorities develop and implement local policies that take the global commons into account, for example, climate change?
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■ Will local authorities embrace national policies for economic growth and nation-al development?
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■ Can the local authorities develop and manage fiscal structures and systems which do not contradict national fiscal systems?
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■ How will the possibility of an insular perspective be minimised?
The second issue concerns the ‘national’ commons of national security and nation-al unity. Although locnation-al authorities and communities have important roles in foster-ing national security and national unity, national governments are ultimately respon-sible for the defence of the country’s boundaries, maintaining the overall peace and security of its citizens, and building national identity and unity. History has demon-strated the negative impact of tribalism, racial and religious factions in many coun-tries, which remains a crucial factor today. Sometimes local authorities can rein-force identities and tribalism, as I observed earlier. The level of vulnerability for national security and national unity will determine the approach to the local ance of a country. The country’s leadership will have to assess how a local govern-ance system will operate in conflict areas and diverse societies without compromis-ing national security and national unity.
The third issue relates to safeguarding the country’s citizens during extraordinary disasters, natural or otherwise. Citizens need to be protected at all times, and there must be adequate mechanisms and resources in place to mobilise rescue services for citizens affected by disasters. Since the impacts of different disaster events dif-fer, resource requirements and approaches to governance will differ. Criteria must be put in place to determine the division of responsibilities for handling extraordi-nary disasters across levels of governance.
The fourth issue relates to safeguarding national interests and standards in order to protect the citizens, foster equality in service provision and promote the nation’s competitive edge. As with the third issue above, this is an area which the central government has an interest in overseeing, either directly as the implementer, or indi-rectly as a regulator. Here too, therefore, criteria must be developed to determine the division of responsibilities across levels of governance.
A recent example in Tanzania is the provision of education in secondary schools, where over the last decade there has been huge growth in the number of secondary schools dispersed around the country. Previously the administration of primary ed-ucation had been the responsibility of local authorities, while secondary eded-ucation remained under the central government. This substantial growth in the facilities of and enrolment in secondary schools created a significant demand in administrative requirements, which the central government experienced difficulties in satisfying.
Local authorities had substantial experience in administering primary schools and were considered the appropriate bodies to undertake this task. Thus the decision was made to transfer the administrative burden for secondary schools to them, while still retaining the policy and inspectorate responsibilities with the centre.
It is logical that the available capacity and size of the country determine the system of governance to be adopted. Other things being equal, devolution is often desired for large countries in order to strengthen governance. Essentially one has to move
‘down’ because a country’s large size means that it is difficult to manage from a central position. However, other contexts, such as history, infrastructure develop-ment and its distribution, available human and financial resources and their distribu-tion, and the capacity of the centre to provide regulatory and oversight services need to be considered in determining the preferred governance structure.
By way of summarising, the justifications for either system of governance are wor-thy and valid, just as there are weaknesses and strengths in both devolution and centralisation. Ultimately both systems are trying to improve the livelihoods of the nation’s citizens.
Successful devolution requires strong national foundations, adequate resources, sound preparations and efficient implementation. Devolution across the board as-sumes that capacity already exists at all levels, yet this is most often not the case in a developing country. Just as certain goods are subject to market failure, there can be failure in decentralisation when there are weak national foundations and limited capacity, whether financial, infrastructural and/or human. When there is failure in devolution, service provision will suffer. A similar narrative can also be made to de-scribe a scenario of failure in centralisation.
The crux of the matter is that a strong central government is needed in order to have strong local government. A particular governance system, say devolution, cannot be applied unilaterally; this explains why a governance system must be specific to the country, sector, and in some cases even to the locality. If there is weak capacity in local authorities, then it is necessary to keep them closer to the centre in order to allow for prompt intervention to address the failures. Inversely, competent capacity at both the local authority level and at the centre means that a nation can be fairly close to the extreme side of devolution.