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Abstract
Advocates of decentralisation often assert that, through an efficient division of labour, decentralisation can improve governance, especially the delivery of goods and services. However, arguments for decentralisation typically focus on the formal provision of services by sub-national government agencies that do not cater to the poor, particularly in developing countries, since the poor often do not have access to formal land and services. When national and local governments fail to provide urban services to the poor, other ‘intermediaries’ (quasi-formal and informal institutions) step in to provide and mediate access to these services. These intermediaries have been found to offer more accessible, but often, less affordable and/or reliable services. This paper draws on new empirical and analytical insights to understand the role that local governments play in bridging the formal–informal service delivery gap, focusing, in particular, on whether stronger policies for decentralisation lead to more innovation and/or involvement of the local government in the provision of services to informal communities. This question is critical to discussions on decentralisation, since local governments are often assumed to be best positioned to provide more equitable access to services and/or regulate provision by intermediaries. The findings suggest that decentralisation, combined with pro-poor national policies, provide a basis for greater innovation by local governments to address the needs of the poor. However, the sustainability and replication of these efforts may be limited.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the help of Dr Ferdous Jahan (Bangladesh), Dr Sauwalak Kittiprapas (Thailand), Dr Emma Porio (Philippines) and Lydia Ruddy and John Taylor (Indonesia), who have provided the country-level case studies for the ADB (Citation2010) report. The authors would also like to thank participants at the conference on Decentralisation and Urban Transformation in Asia, 10–11 March 2011, organised by the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, in collaboration with The Asia Foundation, for their helpful comments and suggestions.
Notes
This paper draws upon case studies presented in the report, Access to Justice for the Urban Poor: Towards Inclusive Cities, published by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Citation2010. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the ADB or its Board of Governors or the governments they represent. During the writing of this paper Asha Ghosh was the Assistant Director for Local Governance Programmes at The Asia Foundation. She supervised the research for the TAF–ADB study and prepared the synthesis report submitted to the ADB. Lalitha Kamath participated in the review of this research project held in Manila, the Philippines, in April 2008.
The sites for the ADB–TAF study were selected by the lead researcher in each country in consultation with the ADB and TAF. In Thailand, the three sites included Two Sides of the Railway in Nakhon Ratchasima, and Piman Pattana and Rais Pattana in Bangkok. The Philippines sites included Duljo Hospicio, Duljo Integrated Neighbourhood Association and Laguna Neighbourhood Association in the Barangay of Duljo Fatima in Cebu City; and Golden Shower and Payatas Trece in Quezon City, Metro Manila. The Bangladesh sites included Korail and Aam Bagan Slums in Dhaka and Agrabad Batsuhara Colony in Chittagong. In Indonesia, the sites included Pademangan Barat in Jakarta and the riverbank settlements of Gunung Sari and Bratang in Surabaya.
In Lima, Peru, de Soto Citation(1989) finds 83 per cent of markets to be informal ones and 95 per cent of public transport to be run by the informal sector. Other cities in the developing world exhibit similar characteristics with regard to the major role that informal processes and actors take in urban development (Castells, Citation1983; McCarney and Stren, Citation2003; Peattie, Citation1987; Simone, Citation2001; Tripp, Citation2002).
At the sub-national level of government, i.e. the upazilla and zilla parishad levels, there is no elected political representation.
The neighbourhood unit or RT (rukun tetangga) and the community unit or RW (rukun warga) are community-based organisations that play a leadership role in the community and interface with the local government while remaining fundamentally independent. The heads of these neighbourhood and community organisations are directly elected, but they are not paid a salary.
Local governments have the power to issue two types of policies. General policies, consist of development and budgeting policies, formulated through standard development meetings at all levels of local government—i.e. village, sub-district and district—and are issued in the form of local regulations. The second type are special policies based on the needs of local interest/citizen groups and the interests of local government, and can be issued in the form of a decree from the head of local government or a local regulation.
The barangay is the lowest tier of local government at the neighbourhood level.
There are a large number of non-nationals from neighbouring countries such as Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia residing in cities in Thailand who are barred from urban services and ownership of property. This has contributed to making the Government of Thailand cautious in implementing decentralisation policies and programmes.
There are a number of other intermediaries in each of the countries that provide services, one of the most common being private individuals, but these have not been identified in this study.
This structure provides CODI with greater freedom to apply for funds under the annual government budget, and with greater flexibility to make linkages and support collaborations between urban and rural groups.
Under current globalising conditions, the persistence and expansion of the domain of the informal have pushed multilateral agencies, like the World Bank and policy-makers in developing countries, towards a growing recognition of the impossibility of ‘formalising’ this segment (NCEUS, Citation2008).
There is a considerable literature on contextualisation and site-specific interventions, albeit focusing more on decentralisation in the context of natural resource and ecosystem management (for more details, see Lejano et al., Citation2007; Balooni et al., Citation2008).
It is important to note that, in Thailand, a significant portion of the land (approximately 47 per cent) that is inhabited by informal communities is owned by the national government, so there is an inherent incentive to establish mechanisms for negotiating with these communities.
For a definition of adaptive learning and management, see Gray et al. Citation(2001).
The electricity service providers—i.e. the Manila Electric Company (MERALCO) in Manila and the Visayan Electric Company (VECO) in Cebu City—have established community relations offices to take care of the needs of urban poor communities. The Maynilad Water System, which provides services to Payatas, and the Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD) in Cebu City, have grievance mechanisms to serve their urban poor clients. MCWD has a community relations section that responds to the needs, complaints and grievances of their urban poor clientèle, especially for those in communal water associations.
Usually, the beneficiaries of the city's socialised housing programme have to pay a very low rate of interest. In the case of LNA, the city waived the interest.