Decentralization Debate: Democracy, Development and Collective Action

Abstract

The background in which decentralization measures are implemented in developing countries, especially in Africa, is complicated. The modern state was born in a particular historical context of sixteenth to eighteenth century Europe. This form of political order was extended to different parts of the world, including Africa, by the expansion of Europe which was then the dominant world power. The transition from colonial to native authorities did not necessarily improve democratic practices or economic well-being for the majority of Africans. Legacies of colonialism, although they are not the only factor contributing to contemporary difficulties faced by the tropical countries, still exert profound influences on today’s political and economic affairs.

The key to resolving the problems of African administration lay[s] in the development of an efficient and democratic system of local government... I wish to emphasize the words: efficient, democratic and local... I used these words because they seem to me to contain the kernel of the whole matter; local because the system of government must be close to the common people and their problems, efficient because it must be capable of managing local services in a way which will help to raise the standard of living, and democratic because it must not only find a place for the growing class of educated men, but at the same time command the respect and support of the mass of the people.

Lord Creech Jones, 1947, Secretary of State for Colonies, emphasis in original

This famous dispatch is quoted in Apter, 1997, p. 236; Kasfir, 1993, p. 26; and Olowu, 1999b, p. 286, and referred in Turner and Hulme, 1997, p. 16.