The article proposes that the power of local government to design and deliver educational services contributing to long-term conflict transformation is mediated by two factors: the model of decentralisation adopted in the aftermath of conflict, and the decision-making model at the centre (power-sharing). It employs rich qualitative data collected during extensive fieldwork. It compares the design and delivery of education across three post-conflict societies with a particular focus on attempts to reform the Lebanese University in Lebanon, to establish an Education and Skills Authority in Northern Ireland and to rationalise the school network in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

This paper explores decentralisation’s contribution to post-conflict state building in four Commonwealth countries: UK (Northern Ireland), Sri Lanka, Sierra Leone and Rwanda. Drawing on insights from senior local government officials, it explores post-conflict institutional arrangements and finds that decentralisation policy has made a significant, if varied, contribution to community cohesion, reconciliation and state legitimacy in each country. In Northern Ireland and to a lesser extent Sri Lanka, quasi-federal structures have enabled peace negotiations through greater autonomy and state legitimacy in the eyes of former separatists. This has however limited further devolution to sub-provincial local councils. In Sierra Leone and Rwanda, decentralisation has had a more developmental rationale. Greater equity in basic local service provision and more inclusive local governance has supported community cohesion and reconciliation in all four countries, though there are capacity gaps and coordination issues with central government agencies. There is evidence decentralisation has contributed to peace in all four countries although in Rwanda the restriction on pluralism has limited local government flexibility to address community needs. The case studies offer key lessons and signpost continuing challenges, which may help other governments to consider what features of decentralisation may work best for their post-conflict political settlement and the sociocultural dynamics of the communities they serve.

In 2005 CLGF members adopted the Aberdeen Agenda: Commonwealth Principles on Good Practice for Local Democracy and Good Governance. The twelve Principles were developed at the CLGF’s biennial conference in March 2005 and were subsequently forwarded to Commonwealth Heads of Government, who also adopted them as part of their commitment to fundamental political values when they met the following November. Since then members of CLGF have used them in a variety of different ways – to support their own policy making, to enhance their lobbying and advocacy work, and in some cases, notably in Pakistan and Uganda (see CJLG Issue 2), to undertake a selfassessment of the health of their systems of local democracy and governance.

Uganda embarked in 1993 on radical decentralization, among other reasons, to enhance local governance and local democracy. The major focus of the decentralization policy was on empowering citizens to participate in decisions that affect their localities. This issue will be examined based on two major themes of the twelve principles of the Commonwealth’s ‘Aberdeen Agenda’ for local democracy – the enabling environment and participation. However, the paper argues that Uganda’s devolutionary decentralization can only foster local governance and local democracy if it is properly conceptualised, the facilitating conditions are given careful attention, and the institutional framework is sufficiently elaborate and effective to enable it to achieve its intended objectives. Short of these measures, the gap between intent and reality might be so great as to disable the decentralization policy from achieving real local governance and local democracy.