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COPYRIGHT 2008 Professors World Peace Academy
It may initially seem a paradox that national-level governments are strengthened when they decentralize decisionmaking power by giving local communities (1) control over, or at least a decisive voice in, matters relating to their own development. (2) After all, how can national sovereignty be reinforced when planning and managing of development programs are assumed by the very communities these programs affect? Many people assume that a country's autonomy is strengthened the more power is concentrated at the national level.
However, in reality when national governments assist initiatives that enable a community to determine and implement its priority development projects (in job creation, education, health, environment, etc.), they create in the process diverse administrative partnerships at all domestic levels. Everyone benefits. Local organizations and communities are desirous of maintaining these partnerships at the national level because government support promotes the satisfaction of their specific needs and better enables the people to shape the institutions that govern them. (3) Central governments also benefit because by creating overall targets that encourage inter-regional balance and competition, they can foster better performance, (4) positively affect areas far from the national capital, (5) and enhance the central government's legitimacy. (6)
There are a wealth of examples of decentralizing initiatives with national support from all over the world and in history. As early as 1956, the Administrative Committee of the United Nations stated that a major function of national governments is to unite with the efforts of the people and improve the conditions of local communities. (7) The committee was stating what has since become a basic tenant of rural development initiatives in developing countries, which is that they nearly always involve decentralizing at least some decisionmaking functions. As it turns out, the more such initiatives encourage the overall national plan, the greater the possibility of their receiving domestic support. (8) In both mixed economies and socialist societies in Asia, for example, rural institutions became more effective promoters of development because of support from higher levels of government. (9) In Brazil, the decentralizing process and the local participation it encourages allowed citizens to be directly involved with municipal fiscal planning that in turn enhanced transparency and responsiveness of social services. (10) Joint forestry programs in India, organized by local organizations, met with government encouragement, which led to the central government's enhanced legitimacy. (11) In sum, as Manfred Max-Neef has observed regarding wealth creation: "Processes which nurture diversity and increase social participation and control over the environment are decisive in the articulation of projects to expand national autonomy and distribute the fruits of economic development more equitably." (12)
Governments may be reluctant to decentralize development management out of concern that it may enable secessionist movements, and thus become a cause for conflict. However, it is more often the lack of empowerment in decision-making at the sub-regional level that heightens political resistance and the lack of integration into the nation. Governments often fail to realize that the terms of decentralization yield strong sovereign nations. Consider the United States, a nation formed by federalism or decentralization, which is a central feature in the Constitution and can be described as that which limits the national government in favor of local and state governments. (13) This example underscores decentralization as a potential means of conflict resolution by providing autonomy to sub-regions, which can have a stabilizing effect. (14) This essay explains why decentralization of development, if well negotiated and strategically implemented among the people in most need in Palestine, Iraq, and the Western Sahara, will build essential conditions for ending these regional conflicts.
"Participatory development" has become the term used to refer to community planning methods that create decentralization. These methods involve the participation of "facilitators" who organize local...
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