Lessons learned from Norway’s support for decentralisation and local government reform in developing countries

This paper looks at lessons learned on Norwegian support for decentralisation and local government reform. It includes lessons learned from projects and programmes funded mainly through bilateral state-to-state development cooperation and through the UN system.

Support to decentralisation started through support to integrated rural development programmes in the 1970s. The paper therefore includes a limited number of these programmes from Tanzania and Sri Lanka.

Key findings:

Norwegian development cooperation moved from Integrated Rural Development Programmes (IRDPs) and district-based project support to public administration reform and local government reforms in the early 1990s. The focus shifted from projects to national reforms and reforming national systems. In Norad, little interest was given for the use of ongoing district-based projects as pilots to gain information and knowledge relevant for national local government reforms supported by Norway. In other countries at the same time, Norwegian support continued to be directed to district-based or province-based projects and programmes. With the move from IRDPs and district-based programmes to support of national reform programmes and activities came also the need for stronger donor coordination.

The move away from IRDPs and the emergence of support to decentralisation reform programmes took place in parallel with the renewed discussion of poverty reduction in development cooperation in the late 1990s, and the development of the poverty-reduction strategies (PRSPs). Initially, there were few links between LG reforms and poverty reduction. However, PRSPs usually had many references to the importance of LG reforms and the need for stronger planning and implementation capacity for poverty reduction and service delivery at the local level. Gradually a stronger link has been developed between poverty reduction and LG reform programmes in some countries.

There has been an unspoken and unresolved balance between the need for reform and for capacity-building. Although most actors agree that reform is what is needed, and that new procedures and practices are what need to be developed, the focus in actual programming has to a large extent still been on traditional capacity-building activities, workshops, training, and formal training programmes. Little is documented as to the investment in Technical Assistance (TA) in the projects and programmes and the effects of this support and impact on programme activities and LG reform capacities in public administration. IRDPs were expert-intensive programmes, i.e. a substantial part of the funding was for Norwegian or other foreign experts on long-term contracts. However, there is little documentation or discussion of their role and effects of their use in the project reports and reviews.

Cross-cutting issues, such as gender are not, or to a limited extent, addressed in decentralisation and LG reforms programmes. New aid modalities are a real challenge in addressing cross-cutting issues such as gender, but also offer opportunities of better addressing gender, and positioning it on the political arena. The last years have also seen a trend from a focus on involving women in local participatory processes and as beneficiaries, to addressing female leadership, and women’s participation in decision-making at all levels, also in formal positions, as well as addressing basic gender imbalances in society.

Summary