AID assistance to local government : experience and issues

has increasingly provided assistance to local units of government. This study, based primarily on review of A.I.D. documentation of 63 local government projects, addresses three key issues: the projects' effectiveness in enhancing local authority, their impacts on the private sector, and their success in achieving local development per se. The authors show that emphasis on local government has grown partly as a result of dissatisfaction with centralized public planning and implementation and partly due to country-specific and Mission-specific factors. A.I.D.'s local government portfolio consists of a hodgepodge of program types (decentralization initiatives, area development programs, components of larger programs, and direct assistance); institutional arrangements (including indirect assistance through regional or national entities), and strategies (management training, revenue generation, financial studies, and participant training). The projects' effectiveness in increasing local autonomy is likewise mixed, and appears to be a function of central government commitment, preexisting local capacity, and stage of decentralization. Paradoxically, it is often necessary to increase national strength temporarily to achieve the long-term objective of decentralized autonomy. Generally, local government projects have lent support to private sector development, both directly and indirectly, although in a few instances the private sector may have been displaced. The issue is seldom addressed in A.I.D. documentation, however. Capacity building within local governments, while not easy, is a valuable strategy in situations where these governments play a key role in decentralization efforts or are needed to implement A.I.D. assistance. However, local government support should be viewed as a means to achieve sectoral objectives and not as a goal in itself. Finally, the authors caution that as the importance of local governments varies from country to country, the formal statements found in project documentation are of little use in assessing specific situations. Informal behind the scenes patterns of decisionmaking are far more important. A 76-item bibliography (1967-1982) is provided.