Deepening decentralisation

The restoration of multi-party democracy in 1993 in Malawi brought with it the need to decentralise the highly centralised administrative powers to local governments.

The devolution of power from Capital Hill was one way of promoting participatory democracy and decision-making for inclusive local development.

Subsequently, the Local Government Act and Decentralisation Policy in 1998 to entrench “power to the people”.

Despite numerous achievements facilitated by decentralisation, more still needs to be done to deepen the concept.

Therefore, devolution should not stall at district level, but rather flow to area and village development committee levels.

In this country, however, decentralisation stops at the district council level, where most service sectors are located.

The lower development structures at community level are generally dysfunctional.

For instance, extension workers do not have unified leadership as is the case at the district level. There are no office buildings to enhance lower-level decentralisation.

Consequently, there is no practical and measured pooling of resources to implement projects from the area and village action plans.

All the sectors, therefore, require legal functioning organisation structures at community level to further devolve both functions and resources to make full decentralisation work for Malawians.

Deepening decentralisation means that resources should also be further transferred to the lowest tiers of the hierarchy where projects or programmes are implemented.

This leaves the district councils’ administration with the function of technical oversight, interpretation of policy and regulatory frameworks, resource transfer to the sub-local authorities and localisation of the district development plans (DDPs)

In the short run, government may consider providing appropriate infrastructure such as office buildings at area development committee (ADC) level to put all local officers under one roof.

In India, this concept is already working effectively as a tool for rural development. The ‘panchayats’ have legal authority, unlike the ADCs and village development committees (VDCs) in Malawi.

In Malawi, this would be village parliaments or assemblies mandated to discuss development issues, identify financing and implement projects.

To attain full decentralisation in the country, I suggest a three-tier power tree for both council secretariat and political leaderships.

The council leadership finds it difficult to work with people at grassroots due to capacity, resource and geographical constraints.

Therefore, at ADC level, both the secretariat and local leadership should mirror the district-level structure.

Thus, whereas the district is headed by district commissioner, the ADC would be headed by area executive officer with functional officers such as area finance officer, area works officer, area planning officer, area health officer and so on.

The third tier would comprise village executive officers heading VDC secretariats, with village-level officers responsible for development and planning, finances, agriculture and education.

Currently, the education sector would easily adapt to this proposition, with education zone managers becoming area education officers.

With full decentralisation, the development and subsequent updating of development planning tools such as DDPs as well as area and village action plans will be made easier.

This requires both national and local legislative frameworks to deepen the decentralisation agenda.

As such, Parliament has a duty to amend the Local Government Act of 1998 to include the suggested lower-tier structures such as ADCs and VDCs.

Once the law is established, the nation can legally deepen decentralisation for the benefit of all Malawians, including future generations.

Deepening decentralisation will bring efficient and effective local governance systems with inherent resource optimisation practices.

The strong systems will be catalysts for the ongoing public sector reforms to achieve tenets of participatory rural development, transparency and accountability through mphamvu ku anthu—power to the people.