Governance is made up of the political and institutional processes through which decisions are taken and implemented. Governance is most effective when these processes are participatory, accountable, transparent, efficient, inclusive, and respect the rule of law. Good governance is particularly important at local level, where governments interact with citizens and communities on a daily basis.
Improving local governance is a vital tool to guarantee peace, boost economic development, maximize administrative efficiency, and ensure social inclusion and environmental sustainability. Local leaders work on improving local governance across the world includes research and advocacy on decentralization and local democracy, local finances, gender equality and access to basic services, all of which are essential elements of good local governance.
Local government not only has to develop and implement local policies and service delivery strategies, but is also obliged to implement the policies adopted by higher levels of government. The main focus is on the policies and strategies that are developed at a local level. Local governments initiate and have control over the policy conception and implementation phases in their municipalities. They can develop working models that match the local structure in the public and political arenas.
Policy can be described as making decisions that reflect values and allocating resources based on those values. Thus, policy represents a particular political, ethical, or programmatic viewpoint. Governmental policy reflects theoretical or experiential assumptions about what is required to resolve a particular issue or problem. It is the process by which governments translate their political vision into programmes and actions to deliver social services. Policy can take a range of different forms, including non-intervention; regulation, for instance by licensing; or the encouragement of voluntary change, including by grant aid; as well as direct public service provision.
Policy-making is the process by which governments translate their political vision into programmes and actions to deliver the desired change in the real world. Two parts to policy formulation: Effective formulation (analytical phase) means that the policy proposed is regarded as a valid, efficient, and implementable solution to the issue at hand. Acceptable formulation (political phase) means that the proposed course of action is likely to be authorized by the legitimate decision makers, usually through majority‐building in a bargaining process. That is, it must be politically feasible.
Policy is implemented through the activities of public bureaucracies and the expenditure of public funds. Policies are formally and informally evaluated by government agencies, by outside consultants, by interest groups, by the mass media, and by the public. Policy processes ideally involve different stages: agenda setting; formulation; implementation; and evaluation. This approach provides a way to discuss many of the ways policy is constructed, carried out, evaluated, and made again.
The world for which policies are developed and implemented is becoming increasingly complex, uncertain and unpredictable. Citizens are better informed, have rising expectations and are making growing demands for services tailored to their individual needs. Key policy issues, such as social need, low educational achievement and poor health, are connected and cannot be tackled effectively by departments or agencies acting individually. Some of the challenges to policy implementation and service delivery in local governance include:
Conservatism: One of the key constraints of African development is institutional rigidity as a characteristic of policy management dispensation on the continent. Cultural values that have largely contributed to this rigidity. Due to internal conflict, the African culture impedes any cooperative action in political associations and in modern administrative agencies.
To enhance policy management capacity in developing countries, there is need to review the critical skills in the policy process among policy makers and implementers. Such skills entail leadership and motivation, entrepreneurial skills and innovation, planning and forecasting, programming, sequencing, precision-management/coordination, resource mobilization and optimization, information storage, retrieval/scanning, utilization, human resource management, conflict resolution, and crisis control.
At a close range of analysis, these skills are crucial for addressing a number of institutional and process constraints for effective policy implementation and service delivery. Most policies in developing countries like Uganda are managed through a set of institutions; defined as a set of informal and formal rules that structure interactions between organizations and between individuals. A reality gap between ideas of the best practice and the actual legal, administrative, political and economic processes that exist in low- income and middle-income countries means that a ‘one size fits all’ approach is likely to be an impediment to effective service delivery.
Political interference: Politics has been identified as a key issue to understand policy management. In neo-patrimonial systems, the president and other politicians at the top play a significant role in policy implementation. Because governments in most developing countries do not control power, politics emerges as supreme and undermines other rational bases for policy determination; subsequently, a policy deficit is caused.
In Uganda for example, the transition from the movement type of politics to competitive politics has further compounded this problem because the ruling regime will ensure that there is total monopoly over state resources and this leads those in power to become directly involved in policy management even where the work would have been delegated to local government bureaucrats.
Interests of the donor community: Another political dimension worth mentioning has been the issue of donors. Several environmental factors can influence the implementation process, including the economic, social, and political conditions prevailing at the time, as well as the nature of public opinion that exists in the implementation environment. Yet these factors also have a cultural aspect. For instance, the influence of donors often leads to failure.
The World Bank for example has immense influence due to its resource capacity and politics of residency, which makes it a willing and able lender. Hence, it can impose its preferences on reforms and sometimes the imposed reforms may be inappropriate. Thus, high-level dependence on external funding, which comes with conditionalities, may require new policies that may contradict homegrown policy preferences.
The reason as to why countries accept donor influence (e.g., agree to implement a reform which the donor recommends knowing that it is likely to fail), has to do with resources: while these countries need resources, civil servants know they can individually profiteer from them. For example, donor money and jobs created in connection with a reform implementation process can be awarded based on ethnicity and nepotism. Policies are at times accepted primarily for political survival, and worse still, they perpetuate neo-patrimonial networks that have a devastating effect on the way policies are managed in Uganda and other developing countries.
Bureaucratic inefficiencies: The ‘stages’ of policy making and implementation do not just often overlap, they are often inseparable. In the real world, policy problems and policy solutions frequently emerge together, rather than one after another. In other words, plans may be present at the same time, or before a need to act has been identified. This can lead to poorly conceived policies if ministers present a solution that is flawed, or whose relationship to a policy problem is unclear, but will not hear it challenged. The policy process does not do enough to address these difficulties.
Policy makers must agree on the appropriate solution where ministers are clear about their goals, and then are prepared to engage in an honest, interactive discussion about how to achieve them. However, such discussions are impeded by a lack of time, appropriate institutional arrangements, and problems in ministerial-civil service relationships. There is need to ensure that the policy problem has been fully considered, and the option tested properly. Most policies and plans are inefficient in learning from past experiences, and as a result they often devise ambitious targets which ultimately fall short of their desired outcomes.
Political will/orientation: Successful policy implementation and service delivery crucially depends on the consistent support of top political and bureaucratic leadership. The lack of ‘political commitment’ of government is the principal reason for failure of reform programmes. There are many instances where government has failed to provide the political support needed for implementing and sustaining policy initiatives. Each new government most likely discontinues most programmes of its predecessors soon after assuming power. Other mass programmes also fail due to low political commitment both at central and local levels.
Policy ideas are dropped because elected politicians and other appointees oppose them. Many ideas are discarded because specialists cannot conceive of any plausible circumstances which they could be approved by elected politicians and their appointees. Policy analysis suffers these political constraints when policy issues are being analyzed.
Governance structure: The issues of ineffective governance and corruption, particularly among politicians and civil servants, is another major obstacle to proper policy implementation and service delivery in local governments. One of the major reasons for the ineffectiveness of governance is lack of coordination and trust among political representatives and government officials, and also the lack of cooperation among different government departments.
This observation indicates towards the issues that are related to the joint action of multiple actors, and its inherent problems. The lack of cooperation among different organs of government and their mutual disrespect create several ‘clearance points’ that hamper the overall organization and implementation of policy. Eventually due to distrust among different agencies and due to the tendency of civil services to resist change, the policy is implemented only symbolically.
Budgetary constraints: Financial limitations also affect policy analysis where expectations may outpace the capabilities of government. Before any proposals is accepted and approved, decision-makers need to be convinced that it has the resource to do them. Decision-makers need to be convinced that the budgetary cost of the programme is acceptable; that there is a reasonable chance that politicians will approve; and that the public in its various facets both mass and activists will approve. There must, therefore, be sufficient fund to meet policy expectations, failure which policy analysis suffers.
Community acceptance: Anticipation of acceptance within a community is another constraint to policy implementation and service delivery. Specialists in policy community know that ultimately their proposals must be acceptable to the public reaction as they design their proposals. The public possible negative reaction to policy proposals acts as a constraint to policy implementation and service delivery. There are certain societal problems which may have multiple causes and a specific policy may not be able to eradicate the problem. There are policies that solve the problems of one group in society and create problems for other groups. In a plural society one person’s solution may be another person’s problem.
This is a constraint to many policy proposals and such policy analysis proposal to solve such societal problem becomes an uphill task. Policy implementation also faces the constraint of solutions to some problem being more costly. For instance, certain levels of public disorder including riots, civil disturbances and occasional violence cannot be eradicated without the adoption of very regressive policies which would prove too costly to democratic values, freedom of speech and press; rights of assembly; freedom to form opposition parties. Thus, a certain level of disorder may be the price to pay for democracy.
Uncertainty: As future is always uncertain, it is questionable whether policy implementation can provide solutions to the problems regarding the future of society. Poverty, unemployment, inequality, and environmental pollution are some of the major problems in the society. Whereas this may sound as an excuse for failing to strive for a better society, it must be realized that solutions to these problems may be difficult to find.
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