Functional local govt system, key to addressing nation’s economic challenges

Current state of local govts is antithetical to economic growth and rural development

All over the world, local governments play crucial roles in the economic development of their communities. As leaders of Local Economic Development (LED), local government authorities work with the people of their communities to develop strategic visions for the future of their cities, towns, and villages, and implement a wide variety of policies and measures to bring these visions to life. At the most basic level, they ensure a secure and stable environment in which economic development can take place. They provide physical infrastructure – roads, water supply, waste management, information and communication technologies – and promote public health, education, and environmental sustainability.

Regrettably, many of our local governments today are there in name, doing nothing, but collecting salaries and allowances. Reason being that they are bereft of funds to operate. Some local government chairmen have become personal assistants to state governors while in almost 2/3rd of the states, no election has taken place in the last ten years. The governors prefer to run the states by proxy in the name of caretaker committees against the letter and spirit of the constitution.

Local economic development is a necessary complement to efforts at the national scale. National and supranational governments must address economic issues appropriate to their jurisdictions, such as fiscal and monetary policy, large infrastructural investments, and international trade agreements. Just as national and supranational governments are best positioned to deal with those issues, LGAS are ideally situated to ensure active participation in development by all stakeholders in their communities, to tackle the problems and barriers specific to their local economies, and to foster integrated development initiatives across multiple, complementary economic sectors. The strong, resilient communities that result are the building blocks of prosperous nations.

The Un-habitat Agenda and Plan of Action adopted at the Habitat II Conference in Istanbul in 1996 recognized the key leadership role played by LGS in economic development. The Nigerian constitutions clearly stated the functions of local governments under the residual list. Unfortunately, state governments have emasculated the local governments to the extent that they have lost their independence. Each month, an average of N180 million is received by each local government for recurrent and capital expenditure. But under the controversial joint state-local government accounts, state governors collect these funds and use them for purposes other than was intended. Little wonder that nothing good happens in any of the LGAS. All they do is pay staff salaries and nothing else.

The national assembly and other arms of government should make legislations to ensure that LGS receive clear, legislated mandates, as well as all necessary human and financial resources to perform their roles effectively as leaders of economic development in their communities. The process of decentralization is already well underway in many countries. To be successful, it must be planned and implemented with the full commitment of all parties. It is not sufficient to download responsibilities without also establishing clear legal mandates, building institutional capacities, and extending access to adequate financial resources.

It is necessary that federal and state governments must recognize the important role local governments play in economic development and support their engagement as partners in planning, implementing and coordinating strategies to promote sustainable economic development as they are positioned to understand and respond to the economic needs and challenges facing citizens and their communities better than any other level of government. In this regard, the federal ministry of finance should devise means of ensuring that funds meant for this third tier of government get to the real owners. This is because the contributions of local governments to more effective and sustainable development can only be of value if they are strengthened to play this role.

We therefore call on call on the national and state assemblies as well as state governments to further recognize local governments as key development actors and support their full-fledged participation, consultation and engagement in national and sectoral policy dialogues on economic development; provide LGAS with access to sources of funding sufficient to play effective roles as initiators, catalysts and drivers of local economic development in their communities; ensure that enabling legal frameworks are in place to allow them to provide leadership in the economic development of their communities; and provide them with support to develop institutional capacities and skills to play their roles in economic development effectively.

We equally call on local governments and their leaders to; engage in a dialogue with national and state governments to ensure that their needs and concerns are clearly understood and supported by relevant policies and programs; ensure that their local economic development strategies, plans, and initiatives are well coordinated and developed within the framework of country development strategies that take into account the local cultural context and national priorities; as well as ensure that the full range of the community voices is heard by promoting participatory processes in their approaches to economic development.