Alex B. Brillantes Jr - The State Reform of the State Bureaucracy and Building Capacities for Decentralization

7/28/2019 Alex B. Brillantes Jr - The State Reform of the State Bureaucracy and Building Capacities for Decentralization

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CONFERENCE ON DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION AND CONSOLIDATION

Working Group 6: The Reform of the State BureaucracyCo-ordinator: Byung-Kook Kim

The State: Reform of the State Bureaucracy and

Building Capacities for Decentralization

Alex B. Brillantes Jr

1. To reform the state, its institutions and processes is a gigantic but critical and difficult task if

we are to sustain the gains brought about by democratization and transitions from authoritarian

to open and democratic regimes.

2. Equally important is the fact that the imperative to reform state bureaucratic institutions and

processes is also in response to the need to improve the quality of lives of the people and

address the ever present problem of poverty that is prevalent in the Third World today.

3. Decentralization must therefore be viewed as a strategy that may be adopted to address the twin

challenges of strengthening democratic institutions and reducing poverty in the third world. It is

therefore imperative that the capacities to design, implement and sustain decentralization must

be high in agenda for reform of centers of government.

4. It is within the context of the above that many interrelated issues and concerns have to be

addressed by efforts to reform the state bureaucracy. These include the following:

To what extent should central government authorities adopt decentralization as a strategy to

transfer powers, authorities, responsibilities, accountabilities and answerabilities to lower

level institutions within the context of opening up institutions and making then more

accessible as part of the overall process of democratization?

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oversight and accountability processes. These are critical in any effort to transform state

bureaucracies as instruments of democratic consolidation.

Decentralization. This is a key reform to enable citizen engagement in the process of

governance usually through the formal mechanisms of local governments. Decentralization

reforms will empower communities through local institutions and authorities and enable

them to be heard - and participate in public decision-making institutions and processes. As

suggested at the outset, this paper focuses on decentralization.

6. Decentralization should be viewed from a multi-dimensional perspective. This means that it

should not be seen as a "zero-sum" proposition whereby the central government's powers and

authorities are diminished with the dispersal of power through decentralization. Neither should

it be seen simply as increasing the powers of local authorities vis--vis the central government.

Instead, decentralization should be viewed as a process whereby the state as a whole is

strengthened. It enables component local institutions of the state to be self-reliant. It allows

local authorities to address specific local issues and concerns that may be unique to their areas

considering their different social, cultural, political and geographical context. On the other

hand, decentralization also strengthens the central government by allowing it to focus its

energies on broad and "macro-issues," sparing it from details that may be better addressed by

local authorities. Decentralization enables central authorities to focus their efforts on broader

concerns including the formulation of long range plans and programs including defining the

state's strategic economic and political role in the global arena. Central authorities may also

help strengthen local authorities by providing them technical assistance, consultancy and

customized training programs. However, towards the overall objective of rationalizing the

whole decentralization process, central authorities must exercise a role that they must

legitimately and morally play: that of coordinating and orchestrating the various development

efforts and interventions in the country.

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7. It is within this context that centers of government (COGs) operating mostly through the

cabinet (in presidential systems) or a cabinet of ministers (in parliamentary systems) must play

a key role in designing, and operationalizing, decentralization if it is to be successful as a public

sector strategy to reform the state bureaucracy. In other words, decentralization cannot - and

should not - proceed unilaterally on its own, driven only by the pressures from local authorities

or orchestrated by central authorities as simply a management tool for the efficient and effective

coordination of implementation.

8. As suggested earlier, the process of decentralization must be viewed its totality, with the

perspective that the whole society stands to gain collectively from it. Other critical issues that

must be addressed include the following: how should decentralization proceed? Should

decentralization be a phased process? Who should "orchestrate" and coordinate the process of

decentralization? What does this process of coordination and orchestration from the center

entail?

9. There is some wisdom to phasing the implementation of decentralization. Such phasing will be

largely be dependent upon the capacities and capabilities of the various institutions involved in

the process, both at the local and national levels. Thus, the determination of capacities,

together with building capacities may be a major responsibility that will be reposed upon the

centers of government. However, such as process should be done through extensive

consultation with, and active participation of, the local authorities themselves. Finally, the

phased implementation of the decentralization process should be incorporated into a Master

Plan for the Implementation of Decentralization, the formulation of which should be the

responsibility of the COG.

10. Capacity building may be targeted at two levels: at the local governments andat the national

government itself. Among the areas of capacities that must be addressed and determined by the

COG are the following:

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In accordance to the basic principle articulated by Roy Bahl that "finance follows

function," it is important to determine what functions and responsibilities should be

transferred, i.e., "decentralized," to local authorities. This is very much dependent upon the

basic services that may be best delivered at the local level, ranging from health to social

services to agriculture to infrastructure to "localize" them and make them more responsive

to the unique needs of the people.

The other dimension of capacities is one that pertains to fiscal capacities. In other words, it

is equally important to determine the sources of financial resources and revenues at the

local level that are critical to finance the delivery of basic services. For instance, to what

extent are local governments dependent upon financial transfers and grants from the

national government? How are such fiscal transfers computed? Is there a set formula? How

do the factors of population and land area come into the computation of the fiscal transfers?

Are other factors considered in determining the transfers to local governments? For

instance, is the extent of deprivation (or poverty) of local governments - due in part to their

distance from the capital (as they do in Australia through the Grants Commission), or being

isolated as in the case of island local governments, considered in the determination of their

share from the national government? Is performance considered? Here, performance may

be determined by the extent to which the local governments have collected taxes. It may

also be determined by the people themselves through a report card system. (For instance,

Bangalore, India has developed some kind of a citizens report card on the performance of

the local government.) Finally, it is important to determine other resource generation

schemes at the local level that may be available to support the delivery of basic services at

the local level, in particular, and good governance, in general. This may be where strategies

to harness the energies of the private sector may come in. Examples may be in the area of

joint ventures with the private sector, entering into build-operate-transfer arrangements, and

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privatization of the delivery of certain basic services may be considered. Making available

information about such to local governments, and providing opportunities for them to work

with the private sector, by identifying potential partners and areas of public-private

partnership may be part of the overall capacity-building effort.

After having determined what functions local governments should be responsible for under

a decentralized set up, it is important to determine the availability of qualified personnel at

the local level in order to build and develop their absorptive capacities. It is within this

context that appropriate capacity and capability building programs may be designed for

local personnel. This may range from attendance to short term training programs, to

participation in study tours, to cross posting of personnel to other branches and other levels

of government (as they do in Japan) in order to broaden their perspectives and enable them

to appreciate the situation "from the other side," as it were.

Capacity building must also be targeted at national government agencies who should be

seen as indispensable partners to the success of the decentralization process. Due to failure

on the part of decentralization policy-implementors to focus capacity-building interventions

at national government agencies, there have been cases where decentralization initiatives

have floundered (as parts of the Philippine experience has shown) or worse, been subverted

by national government agencies. This was largely due to the lack of appreciation on the

part of said national agencies of their role in the overall decentralization strategy. They saw

decentralization as a process that diminished their powers and therefore failed to support it,

intentionally or otherwise.

Still part of the overall capacity building intervention that may be designed by the COG as

part of its overall mission of effective coordination is the need to clearly define the

relationships between the national government agencies, and local government, and

between and among the local governments themselves, within the context of

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intergovernmental relations. This means that vertical relationships (national-local) and

horizontal relationships (local-local; government-non-government; public-private) should

be clearly defined. Again, this could be done by the COG only after extensive consultation

with the major stakeholders at the national, local, government and non-government levels.

Another dimension of capacity building for decentralization is to encourage the local

governments to organize themselves into associations, or leagues, that would essentially

serve as a lobby and advocacy group to support decentralization. Many local governments

around the world, including the United States, Canada, Australia, Sweden, Germany and

the Philippines, have organized themselves essentially as non-governmental organizations

precisely to advance the cause of local autonomy. Local governments could collectively

organize themselves with the purposed of advocating decentralization through various

means, including strengthening of local absorptive capacities under a decentralized set-up.

Part of this local capacity building strategy is the preparation of appropriate researches that

would provide empirical bases for transferring fiscal resources to the local governments.

Another aspect of capacity building and advocacy could be in documenting good, and best,

practices of decentralization at the local level, as experienced by other local authorities,

both at the national and international level. The association of local authorities should be

backed up by a professional secretariat and support group, staffed by appropriately trained

personnel, with the capacity to provide technical expertise to the local authorities upon

demand. Additionally, such a secretariat would provide the element of continuity and

stability when the inevitable changes in leadership of local governments, mostly brought

about by elections, arise.

11. At the level of the COGs, the experience of other countries in the decentralization process has

shown that it may be helpful to set-up a sub-committee that would be primarily be responsible

for orchestrating the decentralization process. The sub-committee will essentially prepare the

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technical requirements in the take the formulation of the decentralization master plan, the

determination and design of capacity building interventions, consultations with national and

local stakeholders, etc. In the Philippines, an oversight committee was set up precisely to

orchestrate and monitor the decentralization process. Included among the members of this

oversight committee were representatives of the local governments through their associations

and leagues. This sub-committee will address the inevitable transition-related decentralization

problems, such as status of personnel transferred from the national to local governments, the

bases for the computation of fiscal transfers to specific local governments, and even areal and

boundary related issues and concerns. The idea is to have a mechanism (preferably, as

suggested above, a cabinet level-subcommittee body where local governments are represented,

say through their associations or leagues) constituted specifically for the task of addressing

decentralization related issues and concerns. However, it is still the COG that will have final

responsibility for the adoption and implementation of the overall decentralization strategy of

the stage as part of the reform process.

12. With the general goal of supporting good governance, international organizations and

agencies operating can play a key role to support - and thus increase the probability of success -

of public sector reforms through decentralization. Support for decentralization processes may

be imbedded in the country operations strategies, or country assistance strategies, of

international donor and financial institutions as they support strategies for good governance. For

instance, international institutions such as the United Nations development Programme

(UNDP), World Bank (WB) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and international donor /

aid agencies such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the

Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the United Kingdom Department for

International Development (DFID) and the Australian Agency for International Development

(AusAID), all have support for good governance as central in their country operations

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strategies. Support for decentralization processes can be a key pillar for good governance

strategy. This support can be operationalized in various ways mostly through capacity

building assistance for central and local governments . This includes support for the conduct

of training and sharing of good and best, practices (e.g., in devising formulas for

intergovernmental transfers; developing strategies to enhance local accountabilities and

addressing the problem of graft and corruption; harnessing information communications

technology for local governance; exploring various alternatives for revenue generation and

resource mobilization, etc.); support for the professionalization of the associations and leagues

of local authorities / local governments; and, providing a forum of information exchange not

only among national and local government, but more importantly, among the international

partners supporting good governance and decentralization for public sector reform.

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Annex One

Lessons Learned for Devolution Implementation:

Drawn from studies on the experiences of other Countries

Roy Bahl in a study prepared for the World Bank

Establish National Decentralization Committee to monitor status of decentralization and local

fiscal condition

Clearly assign expenditure functions among levels of government

Allocate adequate local revenues and enhance local collections

Improve equalization impact of inter-governmental grants

Develop local accountability

Ammar Siamwalla in a rural development study for the Asian Development Bank

Prepare the process carefully

Consult extensively

Formulate the plans precisely

Commit politically without reservation

Implement quickly

Finance adequately

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Leonardo Dayao in assessing the Governance and Local Democracy (GOLD) of the USAID

Stakeholder participation is a function of method not time.

Decentralization is more constrained by centralized model than by local capability. The local

is responsive and capable.

Complex planning is overrated as a condition for success.

Conventional needs assessment tend to skew planning and analysis towards conventional

solutions.

Expect that national government agencies operate mainly on the basis of anecdotal information

about local governments

Emphasize organizational development not individual skills

Governance is being redefined at the local level

Terry MacDougall in assessing the Japanese experience on decentralization

Meaningful decentralization cannot simply be legislated. Professional rule-based bureaucratic

and fiscal systems are critical for effective governance at all levels.

The character of local-central relations and balance of initiative change with new issue agendas.

Where local administrative capacity is inadequate to handle a nation's policy needs, it can be

nurtured.

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The LG system can be useful for reducing regional disparities, experimenting with policies to

address new issues, and incorporating new participants into the political process.

Shared growth, through redistributive measures and local responsiveness to diverse interests

can help legitimate democracy.

Local democracy can promote governmental effectiveness by creating feedback channels to

policy makers.

Alex Brillantes Jr in assessing the Philippine experience on decentralization

Decentralization without financial decentralization is meaningless.

Capacity building should be high in the priority of the agenda for local governance.

Through the Leagues, local governments have become more assertive and effective in

articulating LGU concerns over the past ten years.

Local Governments have recognized the value of inter-local cooperation and collaboration.

Local governments have begun to increasingly enter into partnerships and collaboration with

civil society.

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Governance in general, and local governance in particular, has generated interest of

international donor agencies.

Awards Programs are instruments in disseminating and encouraging good, and best practices, at

the local level.

Globalization issues and concerns are concerns that are being increasingly addressed by local

governments.

It is critical to develop performance indicators and benchmarks for good governance.

Devolution in the Philippines is ready to proceed to the next logical step: federalism.

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Documents

Alex B. Brillantes Jr - The State Reform of the State Bureaucracy and Building Capacities for Decentralization