New frontier for intervention in local governance
Local governance and local government reform movement in Bangladesh entered into a crossroad of different height and created strong imperative of revisiting the old paradigm 'rural-urban divide' that have been dominating the policy agenda since one and a half century as the colonial legacy. The society has been going through a gradual process of transformation and qualitative changes so far took place to a proportion of social revolution. The lives and livelihoods
at both the cities and the villages proportionately share the tenants of transformation and many of the old organizational and institutional remnants outlive the emerging legal, administrative and cultural imperatives and norms. The age old local governance and local government discourse that is being practiced and propagated with marked “rural-urban divide” is one of the crucial areas need serious rethinking. The manifestation of which is all encompassing in the realm of general governance crisis in all the frontiers of national and local governance as well as efficient and effective functioning of local government institutions such as Union Parishad(UP), Pourashava,Upazila Parishad(UZP), City Corporations and Zila Parishad(ZP) .
Cities and towns in Bangladesh are not isolated spatial entities. The different spatial units such as Peri-urban, semi-urban and sub-urban areas as well as villages with adequate connectivity all are virtually an integrated whole in a modern globalized situation. The differences that exist are of nature and degree not of kinds and types. Under the changed realities of Bangladesh, “rural” does not necessarily mean remote and isolated. Urbanization in Bangladesh is aggressively in expansion territorially as well as functionally and similarly, rural areas and ruralization is in the process of rapid contraction. There are features of transformation which bring rural and urban societies closer in its livelihood pattern, outlook,
urge and aspiration, in creating demand-supply continuum and lastly in constructing a changed and new vision of life. Large proportions of urban dwellers have profound respect for their rural root and emotionally retain their rural identities and permanent addresses in rural villages of Bangladesh. Another large number of people staying physically in the villages are also leading a life almost similar to the cities. The institutional, administrative and cultural discourses that created 'rural-urban divide' in the past, getting thinner and traditional villagers and traditional urbanites both are losing their distinctly different livelihood of the past and getting integrated to a new living condition and social identity. A new society is already born with identical need, urge and aspirations. To keep the governance and development interventions relevant and consistent, new social and institutional conditions have to be created for the new society which is on the horizon, new norms have to be set and new program interventions have to be developed. Unfortunately, the new social transformation process still could not catch the imagination of many of our governance policy makers and development interventionists.
In spite of strong commitment for 'inclusive development', divisiveness still dominates the inner frame of our mind. Inclusiveness is narrowly premised only on gender, poverty, minority, economic and social backwardness; it very often misses the new and emerging dynamics that need to be considered at the legal-institutional governance domain to keep phase with the changing social realities. In Bangladesh, divisive policies in local governance need critical review. There are proponents of rural development, urban development, growth pyramid, growth pole, urban growth, urban planning, rural planning, rural poverty and urban poverty, etc.; all these endeavors seem as the act of specifying trees but missing the totality of the forests. We live in a world where 'explosion of personality', demographic transformation and transition, democratic urge for participation, constructive thrust for quality of life in terms of services in the spheres of rule of law, security to life and property, health, education, housing, environment, connectivity irrespective of spatial locations (rural, semi-urban, peri-urban, urban metropolis) is paramount. What is in need is ensuring common basic services with efficiency and economy for all irrespective of locations such as villages, cities and suburbs. People living in any location have right to the basic services. Institutional devises for local governance have to be designed and adjusted to cater to the need of the people in appropriate time and space.
In Bangladesh, local government and local governance structure both have become the prisoners within few of the complex hierarchical boxes of very static nature. There are five different units and institutions of local governments(UP, UZP, ZP, Municipality and City Corporation) and four field administrative units (division, district, Upazila and Union) governed by separate sets of laws, rules together with distinct cultural practices which at times are contradictory and repetitive . The urban and rural LG units often seem watertight compartments, still have to share bureaucratic filth and dirt and also blunt blows from mindless central politicians. The Field administrative units at Divisions, Districts, Upazila and Unions considered being separate entities and often posing to be superior to elected LG units at their corresponding levels. As a result the elected local government institutions cannot accommodate citizen aspirations because of divisive rule and policies which goes beyond their control.
The Development Partners (DPs) who want to see democracy function from the grassroots, support many isolated project activities for creating conducive environment for democratic governance.
The experience shows that many of those projects lost their momentum either in bureaucratic quicksand, political abuse and NGO self-interest. At times it creates a new situation which may be characterized as 'projectization of development interventions' make the situation from bad to worse. To ease the situation towards creating an enabling governance environment, local government and local governance projects and programs may be designed and implemented under common and broad programmatic framework so that sustainable bridges could be built across the institutions for common goals to achieve. In the local governance sphere of Bangladesh, instead of the continuation of the legacy of divide, a sustainable agenda to initiate a situation of “Rural-Urban Interface” should be started. The existing Municipalities, City Corporations, ZPs, UZPs and UPs should not be taken as static institutional devises as well as rigid boundaries for governance and agency interventions. An environment of inter organizational cooperation and linkage and major reorganization or rethinking of new organizational devise to address the interface is needed. Another crisis almost wrecking the institutionalization is overlapping, duplication and marginalizing the role of basic and mandated institutions (LGIs), while designing specific interventions within the territorial jurisdiction of those institutions also need serious attention. There are the overriding role of field functionaries and to a large extent they are totally isolated and de-linked with the elected bodies. On the other hand, the project interventions are also designed in such a way that the agencies of the line ministries reserve and deserve the last word, the LG units such as UPs and Pourashavas are engaged with marginalized or peripheral roles ignoring their mainstream functions. In most of the cases, project ideas are generated at the very top; the institutions at the grassroots are not even consulted while conceptualizing the projects. 'Stakeholders' role is mostly created within the 'projects' to merely make the implementation smooth.
The stubborn situation that prevails at sub-national levels is aggravated due to the vertical accountability, virtual isolation and due to the absence of horizontal accountability of government functionaries working at field levels. The service mandates of field level government functionaries such as Engineering outfits like LGED, DPHE, and Facilities, Police, Health, Family Welfare, Education, Agriculture, Fisheries, Livestock, Cooperatives, Women, Youth and Children and LG institutions at their corresponding levels overlap . The money and resources from central government is provided basically to the field level agencies through their respective ministries and the line agencies are squarely responsible to their superiors at different hierarchical points. The elected local bodies are generally bypassed while funds are allocated. The flow of finance and functional assignments clearly follow a model sarcastically be called 'bypass model'. Line functionaries and service providers bypass their corresponding elected bodies with strong central support emanate from over-centralized political and bureaucratic system.
The sub-national level governmental structure i.e. current division, district, upazila and Union hierarchy and representative institutions at corresponding levels like ZP,UZP and UP system as well as municipalities within the territory of ZP and UZP create a complex network of multiple institutions with overlapping jurisdictions. The net result is wastage of resources, lack of direction, unhealthy competition and power conflict. A reform initiative in governance in general and local governance in particular in future may concentrate on two issues discussed underneath:
1. Assessing the potential for reduction of tiers and integration of rural and urban LG institutions under a single legal and institutional arrangement, and
2. Integration of local or field administrative organs and service providing functionaries with the proposed and reformed elected local bodies
The following seven points may supplement the two major issues outlined above.
Democratically organized Local Government Institutions (LGIs-rural and urban) should get the lead role while any developmental and service intervention is designed at their respective levels; a well thought out 'decentralization policy' may guide the state policy regarding LGIs and local functionaries of central government. All project interventions should respect and conform to legal mandate of the LGIs while designing projects. National Planning Commission may ensure the compliance while approving the projects.
Democracy and governance deficiencies should be addressed as fundamental requirement under common and accepted framework for all LGIs irrespective of rural and urban locations.
The longer-term vision of LGIs is to eliminate 'rural-urban divide' and create a uniform and simple institution administered under single umbrella with minimum tiers and types for providing basic and common services.
Provision for common and basic services for all citizens irrespective of urban and rural should be the goal which legally mandated and locally organized democratic institutions will deliver.
No parallel service delivery structure supported by public fund should be encouraged. The service delivery structure or service providers should be administered under single command at the local levels. However,community driven service efforts and efficient private sector need to be encouraged and a coordination mechanism for public-private and community partnership has to be created.
More and more integration of project activities with the mainstream institutions along with their improvement of governance may be a priority area to be addressed; and
Cities, towns and villages should not be viewed as isolated settlements and independent growth centers; backward, forward and other complementarities should be considered with adequate attention.
In conclusion, we wanted to argue that changes in legal, institutional and functional aspects in local governance are inevitable and long overdue. Local governance includes LGIs , local administration and other private and public sector stakeholders in a composite manner. For example, UZP, pourashava, local administration and local service providers all function in an environment of mutual exclusion. A pourashava in a rural Upazila works in an area composed of roughly two square kilometer(km) which was previously part of a union and currently very much within the jurisdiction of one UZP. In some areas, UZP and Pourashava offices are within an area of half a km; still legally they are separate entities without effective coordinating mechanism. Both the institutions receive almost equal amount of government grants, though the service mandates and geographic area differ to a large proportion. The 24 existing government departments at Upazila with almost 600 staff are grossly underutilized, on the other hand UZPs and UPs are grossly under staffed and under-served. There is a way forward to integrate rural and urban LGIs as well as the service providers at particular defined and convenient points (such as District, Upazila and Union) for economy and efficiency of 'local governance'. The ways and means should also be devised to create an environment of partnership among the various citizen forum and formal institutions. In future, perhaps we could think of separating development and services from legislative and regulatory functions of the government as judiciary has been separated from the executive branch. The officials and departments entrusted with regulatory responsibilities should be allowed to function with relative autonomy so that local politics cannot influence and corrupt them. Similarly legislator's control over local regulatory departments and statutory local government institutions needs reasonable separation.
The author is a former professor of Public Administration and former member, Local Government Commission
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