Decentralisation and local governance : country experiences of India, Nepal, Uganda and Ghana

The decentralisation experiences of four countries are reviewed – India and Nepal in Asia and Uganda and Ghana in Africa. In India and Nepal, decentralisation policies have suffered in the past because of the absence of sufficient political and bureaucratic will, imperfect planning mechanisms and weak local government structures. While in India, which has the longest history of experience with decentralisation policies, recent constitutional amendments have been geared towards the revival of local government, political uncertainties in Nepal have, by contrast, affected continuity in decentralisation policies. In Uganda and Ghana, central control has been a striking common feature of the decentralisation scenario, with little evidence of the autonomy that characterises local self government. The effective functioning of the local government system in these countries has, furthermore, been hampered by serious inadequacies in logistic support, housing, transport facilities, office accommodation, and the like, to the point where, in Uganda, government staff posted to district offices had to return to national headquarters. (Author's abstract)