Amidst the population rise, a push for decentralised governance structures that focus on data-driven efficient public service delivery is extremely crucial.
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This is part of the essay series: World Population Day 2024
As the world grapples with the rapid increase in population growth and the resultant strain on resources at multiple levels, innovating the governance paradigm to ensure better management of resources remains the need of the hour. The structures of governance, regardless of the political systems, remains the key institutional force responsible for devising policy solutions to the emerging problems emanating from the incessant rise of population worldwide. The multifarious challenge of population rise and its concomitant repercussions also puts tremendous strain on the institutions of governance responsible for the delivery of development and welfare to the people across countries. Such challenges of governance ranges from increased conflicts over resource distribution, planned urbanisation, climate change, catering to health and educational demands, managing socio-cultural and identitarian differences, data management, human displacement, labour requirements, global conflicts, demands of political representation, and economic aspirations, amongst others. These emerging issues of governance and development encompasses all the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This World Population Day, which emphasises more efficient data collection, a push for decentralised governance structures that focus on data-driven efficient public service delivery, is extremely crucial.
To manage these overlapping as well as unique challenges of governance, decentralisation of authority to the grassroots level institutions remains extremely crucial. Taking a cue from SDG Goal 16 which focuses on strong institutions, the contemporary and evolving world order with population rise and strained resources calls for creating decentralised and empowered local institutions of governance. As the demands of governance become more complex, region-specific, and idiosyncratic, giving more power to the local community-driven self-government institutions is imperative for creating more effective and inclusive governance architecture. The local communities understand their emerging problems, aspirations and sustainable models of growth and development suitable for them. Thus, empowering local governance institutions helps not only in delivering better governance but also paves the way for ensuring more resilient and self-reliant local administrative structures in the long run. Many regions across Asia and Africa which faces the travails of social diversity and population rise, are making commendable efforts to transform governance architecture from mere de-concentration of authority to decentralisation of power at the grassroots for creating an ecosystem of resilient governance.
To manage these overlapping as well as unique challenges of governance, decentralisation of authority to the grassroots level institutions remains extremely crucial.
In the broad array of emerging literature, the concept of decentralisation is embedded in many overlapping insinuations. It can be referred to as ‘state reforms’ in which the hierarchical and centralised models of political and administrative state institutions are transformed into more decentralised and federalised or dispersed arrangements by delegating power to the local governmental bodies. It also involves the institutionalisation of the lower levels of governmental structures with clearly laid down powers and jurisdiction of authority. However, going beyond the nature of the decentralisation process of governance structures, the moot point remains the need to empower the local community for them to take the onus for resolving local governance and welfare challenges. In this regard, two crucial aspects determine the efficiency of the institutions of decentralised governance. First, the nature of the design and the powers vested in those local institutions. Whether the local self-government is elected or not shapes their popular legitimacy to function with relative autonomy at the grassroots. Also, the kind of powers allotted to these local administrative structures holds the key to their capacity for exercising discretion and their own agency to impact policy thinking and implementation at the grassroots level. An emerging avenue that reinforces the need for sub-national institutions of governance is the growing need for local-level data collection and data-sharing across institutions involving all relevant stakeholders on various aspects of demographic parameters and developmental needs. Such nuanced and micro-level data is of paramount importance in introducing a bottom-up approach to sound and informed policy formulation and implementation at the grassroots level.
The kind of powers allotted to these local administrative structures holds the key to their capacity for exercising discretion and their own agency to impact policy thinking and implementation at the grassroots level.
Quite a few studies have revealed the positive impact of decentralisation on the governance and developmental parameters across Asia. There is an emerging call for localising the SDGs by empowering the Sub-national Governments (SNGs) at the local level. The SNGs are increasingly being viewed as effective “implementers of public policies, as facilitators of networks and partnerships between different stakeholders, and as interlocutors between communities and the state, has seen a tremendous increase in the context of formulating and endorsing global agendas such as climate change, urbanization, and the 2030 Agenda.” For instance, the constitutionally mandated empowerment of local self-government in both rural and urban regions in India has demonstrated the significance of decentralisation in bringing in positive impact on local-level governance. The elected and representative self-government institutions like the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) in the rural regions and the municipal bodies in the urban areas have been instrumental in effectively addressing everyday governance issues in India. Also, such institutions have transformed into gender-inclusive bodies with adequate women representatives playing a crucial role in local governance at the grassroots. Also, quite a few countries in Africa are making sincere attempts to empower their local structures of governance to enhance citizens' participation measures along with collaborative initiatives to involve civil society organisations in grassroot-level governance. This can be done by enhancing capacity building and social accountability parameters. The Latin American countries that include nations like Costa Rica, Panama, Paraguay, Dominican Republic and Uruguay, which have had a historical baggage of “tradition of centralism”, have made concerted efforts towards strengthening the decentralised local governments in the last few decades. Many diverse and multicultural countries in the developing world have effectively embraced the process of creating and empowering the local structures of governance to engage the communities in resolving the emerging challenges of everyday governance at the grassroots.
Quite a few studies have revealed the positive impact of decentralisation on the governance and developmental parameters across Asia. There is an emerging call for localising the SDGs by empowering the Sub-national Governments (SNGs) at the local level.
History bears testimony to the fact that centralised decision-making that impacts the lives of diverse sections of people often leads to lop-sided and inappropriate governance designs. This often leads to unsuccessful policy interventions, social discord, inequitable development and disempowered and alienated local community structures. As population explosion, scarcity of resources, socio-cultural insecurity, and economic vulnerability affect many sections of people across the world, sincere endeavours to make efforts to empower the local communities by decentralising the institutions of governance and by devising data-driven sound developmental policy formulations at the grassroots, is the need of the hour.
Ambar Kumar Ghosh is an Associate Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation
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Ambar Kumar Ghosh is an Associate Fellow under the Political Reforms and Governance Initiative at ORF Kolkata. His primary areas of research interest include studying ...
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