Commonwealth Local Government Forum

Local government in small states

SSmall states are defined as countries with less than 1.5 million inhabitants (including small island states and small island developing states - SIDS). Small states make up more than half of the 53 Commonwealth member countries. They face a particular set of challenges including governance, managing vulnerability and remoteness, dealing with limited economic opportunities, and dealing with the impact of climate change

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Developmental Local Government in South Africa: Institutional fault lines

This paper provides a brief introduction to the recent history of, as well as the legal and policy framework for, local government in South Africa. It discusses the transformation of local government from a racially configured, illegitimate arm of the apartheid government into a system designed to produce developmentally oriented municipalities. The progress made by South African municipalities towards realising the vision of developmental local government is remarkable and unprecedented. Over the last 13 years, municipalities have embarked on the extension of infrastructure and development, whilst absorbing fundamental changes to their internal governance and management arrangements, financial management systems and intergovernmental responsibilities. The new local government system offers great potential for the realisation of a better life for all citizens, facilitated by a new generation of municipalities. However, the challenges remain huge and some of these can be attributed to institutional fault lines. These include challenges that come with large, inclusive municipalities, new executive systems and the political appointment of senior officials. The paper also identifies the downside of overzealous institutionalisation of community participation. With regard to intergovernmental relations, the paper highlights the need for a clearer definition of local government mandates and a greater recognition of the role of big cities. The current insistence on comprehensive intergovernmental alignment of policies and budgets is questioned, and suggestions are made to substitute this with an approach of selective alignment around key national priorities.

Author: Jaap de Visser Publisher: University of Technology, Sydney Publication year: January 2009


The Routledge Handbook of International Local Government

The Routledge Handbook of International Local Government conducts a rigorous, innovative and distinctive analysis of local government within a comparative, international context. Examining the subject matter with unrivalled breadth and depth, this handbook shows how different cultures and countries develop different institutions, structures and processes over time, yet that all have some features in common – the most obvious of which is the recognition that some decisions are better made, some services better delivered, and some engagement with the state better organised if there is structured organisational expression of the importance of the local dimension of all these factors. Thematically organised, it includes contributions from international experts with reference to the wider context in terms of geographies, local government modes, recent developments and possible further lines of research. It has a wide academic appeal internationally and will steer a course between the two dimensions of mono-jurisdictional studies and ‘cataloguing’ forms of comparison.
 

Table of Contents 1. Local Governments - A Global Presence [Richard Kerley, Joyce Liddle, Pam Dunning] Part I: Elected Roles and Governance 2. Local Electoral Systems [Michael Cole] 3. Local Political Leadership: The Voters or Councillors – Who Chooses Who Governs? [Colin Copus] 4. Traditional Leaders and Local Government in Pacific Island Countries [Graham Hassall and Paul Mae] 5. The Role of the Councillor [Neil McGarvey and Fraser Stewart] 6. The Relationship between Politics and Administration: From Dichotomy to Local Governance Arenas [Alessandro Sancino, Marco Meneguzzo, Alessandro Braga, and Paolo Esposito] 7. Institutionalized Differences in Economic Development Perspectives: A Comparison of City Managers, Mayors and Council Members in Texas [James Vanderleeuw and Melanie Smith] Part II: Local Governments in Different Jurisdictions 8. The Political Salience of Local Government in a Small State [Ann Marie Bissessar] 9. Local Government in the Pacific Islands [Graham Hassall, Matthew Kensen, Rikiaua Takeke, Karibaiti Taoba, and Feue Tipu] 10. Local Government in Latin America – The Struggle to Overcome Social Exclusion [Andrew Nickson] 11. A Turbulent Past, A Turbulent Future? Reform and Disruption in the Local Government of New Zealand [Michael Reid and Michael Macaulay] 12. Constitutional and Legislative Changes in Caribbean Local Government [Eris Schoburgh] Part III: Range of Local Government Services 13. Local Government Service Roles in the U.S.A: Consistency and Change [J. Edwin Benton] 14. Public Entrepreneurship: Is Local Government Necessary to Deliver Economic Development? [Lorraine Johnston and John Fenwick] 15. The Wide Range of Local Government Public Services [Elisabetta Mafrolla] 16. Public Service Delivery in Today’s Georgia [Giorgi Vashakidze] 17. The Provision of Public and Personal Social Services in European Countries: Between Marketization and The Return of the Public/Municipal and Third Sector [Hellmut Wollmann] Part IV: Citizen Engagement 18. Practices and Challenges of Citizen Participation in Local Government: Case Studies of Midsized Cities in Russia and the United States [Sofia Prysmakova-Rivera, Elena Gladun, Thomas Bryer, Andrey Larionov, Dmitry Teplyakov, Olga Teplyakova and Natalia Nosova] 19. The Urban Governance of Austerity in Europe [Adrian Bua, Jonathan Davies, Ismael Blanco, Ioannis Chorianopoulos, Mercè Cortina-Oriol, Andrés Feandeiro, Niamh Gaynor, Steven Griggs, S. David Howarth, and Yuni Salazar] 20. Redressing the Trust Deficit: Local Governments and Citizen Engagement [Jonathan Carr West] 21. Does Mode of Public Outreach Matter? [Sheldon Gen and Erika Luger] 22. Improving Social Development in Brazil through an Open Budget Perspective: Does Collaborative Stakeholder Engagement Matter? [Ricardo Gomes and Welles Abreu] 23. Civic Engagement in Local Politics in Central Europe [Oto Potluka, Judit Kalman, Ida Musialkowska, and Piotr Idczak] Part V: Multi-Level Governance 24. Australia: Challenging Institutional Constraints [Chris Aulich] 25. Local Government Outside Local Boundaries: Rescaling Municipalities, Redesigning Provinces and Local-Level Europeanization [Koenradd De Ceuninck, Tony Valcke and Tom Verhelst] 26. Local Government in the European Union’s Multilevel Polity [Marius Guderjan] 27. Second Thoughts on Second-Order? Towards a Second-Tier Model of Local Government Elections and Voting [Ulrik Kjær and Kristof Steyvers] 28. The Architecture of the Local Political Community: France; Italy; Portugal and Spain [Jaume Magre and Esther Pano] Part VI: Getting and Spending 29. Local Government Anti-Corruption Initiatives in Post-Soviet Georgia and Ukraine: Another Tale of Two Cities [Terry Anderson] 30. Enhancing VFM Audit in Local Government: The Best Value Initiative [Michela Arnaboldi and Irvine Lapsley] 31. Financing and Taxing for Local Government [Kenneth Gibb and Linda Christie] 32. Adapting to the Fiscal Environment: Local Governments, Revenue and Taxation Powers [Mark Sandford] 33. Financing Local Government in the Twenty-First Century: Local Government Revenues in European Member States, 2000 – 2014 [Gerard Turley and Stephen McNena]

Author: Richard Kerley, Joyce Liddle, Pam Dunning Publisher: Routledge Publication year: 2018


The local government system in Antigua and Barbuda

This profile of the local government system in Antigua and Barbuda is structured to enable easy comparison across the countries of the Commonwealth. The profile includes an overview of the government system, the legal basis for and structure of local government, elections and women’s representation, intergovernmental relations, systems for community involvement, organised local government, intergovernmental relations, monitoring systems, finance, staffing and resources, and distribution of service delivery responsibility. 

Author: CLGF Publisher: Publications UK Publication year: 2015


Does local government have capacity for enabling local economic development? Lessons from Jamaica

Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance - Issue 15, June 2014 Implementation of the Caribbean Local Economic Development Project (CARILED) began in 2012 in seven countries with a duration of six years, to support sustainable economic growth in the region. CARILED has introduced the idea of local economic development (LED) to the development debate in the region and has also brought the organisational capacity of local government, and local government’s role as facilitator of LED, to the fore. This paper assesses organisational behaviour and capability in local government in Jamaica to determine the state of readiness for a developmental role. The paper draws on two sets of research data to aid its analysis – a capacity audit (CAPAUD) conducted in 2010 and an organisational analysis (OA) commissioned by the Ministry of Local Government in 2010, both of which targeted a sample of local authorities in Jamaica. The study found that, when assessed against established criteria for an LED organisation - ie research and information provision; marketing and coordination; learning and innovation; and leadership - local government’s institutional and organisational capacity for development is unevenly distributed. For instance, local leaders understood organisational purpose but efforts to give effect to this appeared undeveloped, sporadic and uni-directional. It was also evident that participatory strategies are used to gain information from communities but these were often devoid of systematic research methodologies rendering formal community impact on local planning negligent. There is strong potential for the kind of administrative leadership required by a developmental local government to evolve, indicated by the quality of training, quantum of managerial/supervisory staff, and stability of staff establishment. However, this potential is threatened by the deficiencies in the non-traditional functional areas that are strategic to the organisation’s effectiveness as a facilitator of LED, ie alignment of community engagement/interface with LED priorities, diffusion of information technology in organisational processes, and use of policy analysis and development. These findings contribute important policy relevant information to regional discussions on the construction of alternative solutions to institutional and organisational problems in response to the economic crises of small island developing states (SIDS).

Author: Eris D Schoburgh Publisher: CLGF/University of Technology, Sydney Publication year: 2015


Local Government in the South Pacific Islands

In this paper we seek to answer some basic questions about the condition of local government in the Pacific. Firstly, we examine what is meant by ‘local government’ in the various islands and for that matter how Pacific Island states have perceived and accepted local government institutions in practice; second, we ask basic questions about existing legal and constitutional recognition and powers; and third, we provide initial findings on current per capita expenditure and local government financial viability in a number of Pacific cities and towns. We also make some observations on current moves towards local government reform.

Author: Graham Hassall, Feue Tipu Publisher: University of Technology, Sydney Publication year: 2008


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