How decentralisation impacts service delivery

Decentralisation means the division of functions and activities into relatively autonomous units with overall authority and responsibility for their operation. Uganda introduced the decentralisation policy in 1997 under the Local Government Act which has since undergone four amendments.

The policy inherently decentralised service delivery institutions and their governance in order to improve access to services for the rural poor. The coming into power of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) in 1986 introduced the transfer of authority from the central government to local governments. Since the 1980s, many subSaharan African countries have been undergoing structural reforms with a view to promoting efficient service delivery.

PROMOTING DEMOCRACY

President Yoweri Museveni's government introduced decentralisation to promote democracy and enhance local participation for development and improvement of service delivery.

Since its inception, the central government, through the ministry of local government — the key implementing agency and the mother ministry of decentralisation —  local governments have performed certain duties in education, health, revenue collection and infrastructure sectors among other roles.

The goal of political decentralisation was to promote people's participation in the democratic process of Uganda. This took the form of administrative units - Resistance Councils (RC 1) running from the village to district level which were later named Local Council (LCs).

The enhanced local participation has witnessed the growth of political and financial decentralisation. Roberts Muriisa in his research titled: Decentralisation in Uganda: Prospects for improved service delivery , analyses how financial decentralisation attempted to assign responsibilities and taxes between the centre and local governments. This was to enable the transfer of grants and other resources to different parts of the country and to improve service delivery. 

Muriisa says while some studies have heaped praises on it, others have criticised it for not delivering services to the citizens as was anticipated at the formulation of the policy by government.  

His research was aimed at finding out the extent to which the decentralisation policy in Uganda succeeded in extending services nearer to the people in Uganda. It also examined the contributions made by decentralisation towards improving efficiency and effectiveness in the service delivery to the citizens of Uganda and identified factors that deter decentralisation from achieving effective service delivery and the challenges associated with service delivery.

SOCIAL SERVICE DELIVERY

In education, the sector has registered significant enrolment of primary and secondary schoolgoing children. Resources have been committed for construction of school buildings under the School Facilities Grant (SFG). Statistics from the ministry of education and sports show that at the end of the 2017/18 financial year the Government constructed 256 new classrooms in 45 districts using SFG. A total of 92 classrooms in 16 districts were also renovated.

"We have expanded 145 primary schools that had less than three permanent classrooms by providing an additional 933 classrooms using the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) grant," the First Lady and Minister for Education and Sports Janet Museveni said. In spite of the criticisms of poorquality education, the reform has significantly reduced illiteracy levels with the exception of severely stressed districts, access to safe water in rural and urban areas has increased.

CHALLENGES

Makerere university political scientist Prof Elijah Mushemeza in his research titled: Decentralisation in Uganda, Achievements and Challenges conducted in 2019, notes that decentralisation has not operated optimally.

"This is due to distortions that have developed, over time.  Notwithstanding the achievements of the decentralisation policy in Uganda, a number of challenges still persist. Local Governments remain sub-servient to the central Government, thereby undermining devolution," he noted.

He points out that while the creation of new local governments has facilitated service access and eased ethnic tensions, the operation of these districts, in their current form, remains a costly undertaking.

Some of the districts were noted to be below their optimal functionality because of inadequate financing.  There is an emerging dichotomy that surrounds the creation of urban centres, which rural local governments view as a loss of viable sources of local revenue. Inadequate financing and investment in human resources and facilities, weak systems and coordination, conflicting legislations and local leadership challenges still abound, Mushemeza adds. 



WAY FORWARD

He recommends that the Government should re-engage the decentralisation discourse, given its critical import to the political economy of the country as well as its development effort.  

Mushemeza says given Uganda's current development trajectory, the implementation of the decentralisation policy should benefit from stronger inter-governmental relations and be aligned to respond to the national drive for wealth creation, transformation and local development.

The ministry of local government should reposition itself as the primary coordination instrument of decentralisation also bargain for more funding, drive the monitoring and evaluation function.

MINISTER'S VIEW

State minister for local government, Jennifer Namuyangu wants an amendment of the decentralisation policy to provide more funding to districts. "We are only getting 11% of the budget. The restrictive policies within the decentralisation policy have also affected the collection of local revenue. Many districts are unable to raise their own local revenue to facilitate their budgets," she argued.

HEALTH

One of the key indicators of accessibility of healthcare is the distance to where the facility is found. According to the health sector performance report for FY 2017/18 overall, 86% of the population access healthcare within a 5km radius an increase from 83% in 2012/13. 

ROADS AND TRANSPORT

There has been a phenomenal increase in the road density across all the districts in Uganda.  For instance, district roads managed by the district local governments and Local Council III (sub-county) increased.