This section contains information relating to all aspects of lcoal democracy and good governance at the local level.
The Commonwealth principles on good practice for local democracy and good governance - known as the Aberdeen Agenda - which have been adopted by all CLGF members and are incorporated in the Commonwealth Charter, set the framework for the promotion of local democracy in the Commonwealth.
The materials in this section relate to the constitutional and legal provisions for local government and include a range of studies, policy and training materials on local elections, leadership, community participation, representative local government, local government management and partnerships between local government and other key stakeholders such as traditional authorities.
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When a country begins a political transition away from violent conflict or non-democratic rule, there are many difficult steps that it must take. Developing an electoral justice system, which includes the means and mechanisms to ensure that electoral integrity is maintained or restored when an electoral process is damaged by repression, misconduct, or irregularities, may appear to decision-makers to be a secondary concern or even an afterthought. This Policy Paper argues for the establishment of an electoral justice system at the outset of a transition, and before initial elections are held. It explains why doing so, despite the challenges, is so important, and offers recommendations on how to develop such systems, in an environment where an adequate legal framework and strong electoral justice institutions may not yet exist.
Author: Frank McLoughlin Publisher: International IDEA Publication year: 2016
Democratic decentralisation through ‘conventional’ institutions of local government is facing increasing challenges, whether from financial pressures, questions of representativeness, difficult central-local relations and from a perhaps growing belief that local government has failed to realise its potential and there may be better ways of achieving societal goals. It is clear there is need to contemplate quite radical change to ensure local government becomes or remains ‘fit for purpose’.
This collection of papers illustrates the way in which the role of local government is evolving in different parts of the Commonwealth and provides practical examples of new local government at work. It showcases emerging practice, and highlights success stories from new ways of working and challenges confronting local government in both developed and developing countries.
Author: Edited by Graham Sansom, Peter McKinlay Publisher: Commonwealth Secretariat Publication year: 2013
The final (third) phase of the Commonwealth Local Government three year capacity building
programme, the Good Practice Scheme, funded by the UK Department for International
Development (DFID) came to an end in late 2011. The programme partnered councils and
local government associations from six targeted Commonwealth countries - Jamaica, India,
South Africa, Sierra Leone, Pakistan and Ghana - with their counterparts in South Africa,
India and the UK with the objective to exchange good practice and generate innovative
solutions to challenges faced by local governments.
A total of 34 projects were active during the Scheme’s lifetime and contributed successfully
to having a positive impact on the ground for local communities. The dissemination of the
project activities through national workshops in partnership with national local government
associations meant that the successes and lessons were shared with local governments
throughout the countries concerned.
A new focus of the third phase of the GPS was to promote south-south partnerships: six of
these partnerships were set up, three of them being tripartite, two having a northern
hemisphere partner, with the remainder, both dual and tripartite, being south-south.
Despite partners’ diverse cultural, socio-economic circumstances and administrative
practices, this methodology of technical support and exchange of ideas allows partners to
share and compare their challenges and reflect on own approaches. The south-south
partners, with varying cultural beliefs, learnt that cultural practices should not be ignored in
advancing new initiatives: traditional norms and practices are a way of life for the majority
of communities especially those in the agricultural, small scale farming sector.
Author: Rachael Duchnowski Publisher: University of Technology Sydney Press Publication year: 2012
Local Economic Development (LED) is a contested concept in southern Africa, and has become synonymous with delivery of generic job-creation projects, often grant-dependent and unsustainable. Municipal LED has followed this pattern in South Africa since 1994, with little lasting success. Each local economy is unique, and has its own problems and opportunities. The ’Plugging the Leaks’ method recognizes that communities themselves know best how money enters and exits their area. By asking people to analyse their local economy as a 'leaky bucket', the method puts control back in the hands of local people, rather than external experts, and allows them to analyse their own local economy to identify gaps and opportunities for enterprise. By better networking and working collectively to improve their local economy, local communities are able to re-circulate cash internally. This circulation of cash is explained as the local multiplier effect in the workshops.
A pilot process of running ‘Plugging the Leaks’ workshops in low income communities in South Africa and Namibia revealed that spending choices in these communities are severely limited in a context where there is no effective welfare state. Therefore, empowerment with this method came from the discovery of collective action and networking, rather than from individual spending choices. Local start-up business tends to be limited to survivalist and copy-cat one-person ventures, and are a last resort when formal employment is absent. In this context collective enterprise offers the necessary empowerment for people to attempt financially sustainable ventures that respond to a gap in the local economy. The pilot project is attempting to show that municipal LED staff can play the role of facilitator for initiating the enterprise-identification process and further mobilise state enterprise support agencies around the locus of LED, without crossing the line between facilitation and implementation of ’projects’.
Author: Lucienne Heideman Publisher: University of Technology Sydney Press Publication year: 2011
This paper begins with an explanation of the nature of local government in Botswana, its
structures, and their functions and accomplishments since independence. It then proceeds to
look at the challenges, and considers measures for meeting them. It ends by looking at future
prospects and draws some lessons.
Author: Keshav C. Sharma Publisher: University of Technology Sydney Press Publication year: 2010
Southern Africa \ Local democracy
