African local governments and the MDGS: Constraints and policy alternatives

Innocent Chirisa

Senior Lecturer, Department of Rural and Urban Planning, University of Zimbabwe

E-mail: chirisa.innocent@gmail.com

Accepted 31 July, 2012

Abstract

The year 2000 saw governments adopting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). However, their implementation in the initial years failed to realise the role of the local government, being at the cutting edge of service delivery to the citizens. With time local government has been taken aboard in many regions as the first port of call for accountability and programmes and projects implementation. Focussing on Africa, the majority of local governments are largely too incapacitated to effectively and efficiently play the emerging roles towards attaining MDGs, a fact attributable to the failure of decentralized governance. The primary objective of this paper is to examine the challenges faced local government in Africa in achieving MDGs. Specifically it intends to broaden and deepen on the understanding of the situation on the ground (baseline conditions) for successful implementation of MDGs by local authorities in Africa, to appraise and  reflect on the capacity of African local authorities to spearhead development and management of project activities  in consultation of other players towards achieving MDGs by 2015, and to show the minimum conditions necessary for local government in Africa to play a meaningful role in the attainment of MDGs. The paper makes use of case studies drawn from across the region.

Keywords: Capacity, poverty, development, governance, accountability