This report documents a workshop held on 9–10 December 2016 at the University of Edinburgh hosted by International IDEA, the Edinburgh Centre for Constitutional Law and the Global Justice Academy. The workshop explored the process and design of sub-state constitutions in fragile and conflict-affected settings, and their role in the broader political settlement and/or peacebuilding process.

The book explores the claim that English local government exists in one of the most centralised relationships with national government. Such a position fundamentally undermines any notion of local self-government and makes the term ‘government’ in local government a misnomer. The book will examine how the erosion of the autonomy, powers, roles, functions and responsibilities of English local government came about, the arguments of centralisers and localisers to support their view of the constitutional status of local government, and its overall role in the government of England. The book offers an antidote to the onward march of centralisation by offering a new vision of local government which emphasises both ‘local’ and ‘government’.   

How does decentralization affect patronage and rent seeking? While centralization is seen as enabling these practices, many expect decentralization to reduce them. With few examples of meaningful reform it is difficult to establish if this is the case in the context of African states. We look at the impact of decentralization on rent seeking and patronage in Kenya, where the devolution of significant powers to county governments has recently taken place. We suggest that devolution has not removed these practices but rather brought them down to the local level in response to popular expectations that it is “everyone's turn to eat”. The realization of this expectation for a broad constituency of ethnic groups and elites has facilitated – so far – the embedding of these reforms. Our findings thus suggest that the implementation of meaningful decentralization has been achieved via the decentralization of patronage networks, meaning that the “our turn to eat” character of ethnic patronage politics persists. As a result, although a greater number of groups now have their turn, ethnic minorities within some counties feel marginalized, including certain trapped minorities from politically relevant groups.

The Association of Local Authorities of Tanzania (ALAT) is 30 years old. it is the association that represents officials of local authorities in Tanzania at both the elected and appointed levels with its mandate being to promote the system of local government decentralization in Tanzania, lobby for the rights of its members, provide a platform for the exchange of information and skills, and provide capacity bulding opportunities for its members. aLaT has established a relationship with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, Municipal Partners for Economic development Program (MPEd), and the Local Government Management association of British Columbia. (LGMa). Within the framework of MPEd the partners have embarked on a capacity building program to strengthen the capabilities of aLaT to support its members through improved knowledge management, the exchange of best practices, a well as engagement in program monitoring and evaluation. if aLaT is able to develop and deliver affordable and practical skill based training for its members this will lead to the achievement of the following objectives:

: This paper describes the work of an alliance formed by three civic organizations in Mumbai to address poverty – the NGO SPARC, the National Slum Dwellers Federation and Mahila Milan, a cooperative representing women’s savings groups. It highlights key features of their work which include: putting the knowledge and capacity of the poor and the savings groups that they form at the core of all their work (with NGOs in a supporting role); keeping politically neutral and negotiating with whoever is in power; driving change through setting precedents (for example, a community-designed and managed toilet, a house design developed collectively by the urban poor that they can build far cheaper than public or private agencies) and using these to negotiate support and changed policies (a strategy that develops new “legal” solutions on the poor’s own terms); a horizontal structure as the Alliance is underpinned by, accountable to and serves thousands of small savings groups formed mostly by poor women; community-to-community exchange visits that root innovation and learning in what urban poor groups do; and urban poor groups undertaking surveys and censuses to produce their own data about “slums” (which official policies lack and need) to help build partnerships with official agencies in ways that strengthen and support their own organizations. The paper notes that these are features shared with urban poor federations and alliances in other countries and it describes the international community exchanges and other links between them. These groups are internationalizing themselves, creating networks of globalization from below. Individually and collectively, they seek to demonstrate to governments (local, regional, national) and international agencies that urban poor groups are more capable than they in poverty reduction, and they also provide these agencies with strong community-based partners through which to do so. They are, or can be, instruments of deep democracy, rooted in local context and able to mediate globalizing forces in ways that benefit the poor. In so doing, both within nations and globally, they are seeking to redefine what governance and governability mean.