Project activity completion report : local government II

Basic services provided in provincial governorates included: provision of clean, piped water to 22 million people in 1,473 villages; construction of 3,250 km of roads; addition of 2,793 classrooms to schools, providing space for 107,000 students; construction of wastewater treatment plants in 25 villages; and 1,059 small environmental projects, largely for solid waste and sewage disposal, benefiting more than 7.5 million citizens. In the urban governorates the project helped to: pave 2,354 km of streets and install 634 km of street lighting; install 58,946 linear meters of water distribution lines and 44,422 linear meters of sewer installations; provide 1,047 garbage collection carts, trucks, and tools; construct 100 public toilets and renovate 1,500 others. In addition, markets, bakeries, and abattoirs were constructed and/or renovated, and 2,106 classrooms were constructed and 40,470 pieces of school equipment were procured. All told, more than 16,000 small projects were funded under the project, vs. a target of only 3,600. Training goals were also far surpassed, with over 98,000 LG and PVO personnel receiving training in technical and non-technical subjects vs. a target of 63,550 in technical subjects. However, fiscal decentralization did not occur, due to the lack of supportive national policies and coordinating mechanisms (wrongly assumed to exist in the project design). The project shows how difficult local fiscal autonomy is to achieve in terms of organizational assignments, staffing, and defined functions. Future efforts to assist local governance should not adopt comprehensive institutional development objectives without confirming that supportive policy foundations are in place on the part of both the recipient country and the donor agency. Unless in a position to exert maximum and sustained leverage, a donor should avoid seeking to alter Egypt's policies on local resource mobilization. Basing sustainability of local services on a major policy change at the central level was an unrealistic assumption. Local projects are most likely to be sustained with local initiatives. The project clearly demonstrated that Egyptian LGs are capable of planning, implementing, and monitoring block grants, and the project system for financing infrastructure proved an efficient and effective means of funding basic services on a massive scale. Paradoxically, the system of operating outside the normal Egyptian administrative structure was the project's greatest strength. Through provision of block grants, governorates and localities were given the flexibility to move funds between sectors as well as between projects. At the same time, however, future achievements are at risk precisely because its system has not been adopted by the government. The project also showed the value of infrastructural development, which has an immediate impact on large numbers of people, as an incentive for innovations in administration and governance projects.