Building Local Democracy

Laura Halligan, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, Access to

Information Programme

The Governance Link, issue 5, September 2008

A number of countries on the planet are increasingly decentralising the functions
and powers originally vested in governments at the national level and placing
more responsibilities and authority in the hands of local bodies at the lower tier of
government administration. This is a prominent feature in the shift being made by
an increasing number of developing countries towards deepening democracy.
Increasingly therefore, more and more decisions which directly affect people’s
lives and wellbeing are required to be made at the local level. Democratic
decentralisation is essentially an exercise in delivering the chain of decision-
making to smaller, more autonomous and self-sustaining segments of society so
that solutions for local level problems are devised and implemented locally. The
success of decentralised governance depends in no small measure upon good
legislation that delineates roles and responsibilities clearly and devolves
adequate powers for the performance of designated functions. Success is also
contingent on the provision of substantial resources to fund the plans,
programmes and activities of local bodies. An environment which enables the
meaningful decentralisation of decision-making is created if the following spaces
and opportunities are also provided for by the legislation:

a) ensuring people’s participation in the processes of deliberation and

decision-making; and
b) providing access to information about the affairs of local bodies in order to
enable people to voice their opinions on their own or through their
representatives in an informed manner.

Local governments in many countries are run by elected representatives with

some assistance from civil servants. For people in local communities, they are
the real face of government. The majority of people at the community level have
the most frequent interaction with this level of government.

The laws establishing local government bodies bestow specific powers on them,
including powers to raise moneys for public works and to allocate limited resources to
public services and projects. In order to be able to perform their duties well these bodies
also collect and generate a variety of information related to individuals and groups. All
this information is useful to local bodies because it provides a clear picture of the issues
relating to administration and people’s requirements in their respective jurisdictions. As
the information is collected, maintained and used in the public interest with the support of
public funds, people should be able to access this information as a matter of right. Unless
people have access to information they will not be able to understand the issues and
contribute their views. Nor are they in a position to influence decision-making on any
public matter or participate in an informed manner in the meetings leading to such
decisions.

In the United States, the Open Public Meetings Act 1971 provides a
comprehensive and strong basis for citizens’ rights to participate in public
meetings. Within the United States, Florida in particular has a strong track record
with freedom of information, and the principle of accessibility is entrenched both
The Governance Link, issue 5, September 2008 2
in state legislation and the Federal Constitution. Chapter 286 of the Florida
Statutes provides for people’s access to meetings of government entities
including local government. Such entities include “any public board, commission
or regional agency under the control of the state Legislature. Members of these
bodies can either be elected or appointed officials.”1 Access to public records is
also provided for, and is defined broadly to include documents, emails, sound
recordings, and “other material, regardless of the physical form, characteristics,
or means of transmission.”2 Furthermore, if information is claimed to be exempt
from disclosure requirements, the agency concerned “must prove why the record
should be exempt under the law, and a public records custodian must specifically
state to a request(or) why a specific document is exempt.”3

Brazil’s Statute of the City adopted in 2001, sets forth a means of

institutionalizing participation in urban areas through local participatory planning
and budgeting.4 A significant development in Brazil is the convening of meetings
to discuss the municipal budget. “Using special local assemblies with citizens
and civil society representatives on an annual cycle, and a Participatory Budget
Council composed of delegates elected from local meetings, neighbourhood
associations, special interest groups, municipal unions, and local governments,
the process entails deliberations on projects for specific districts as well as
overall municipal investment priorities.”5

In Bangladesh, all records prepared and registers maintained under the Local
Government (Union Parishads) Ordinance 1983 are “deemed to be public
documents”.6 The breadth of this concept implies that the public will have access
to a very wide range of information. Accounts of receipts and expenditure are
included as public documents and the Ordinance requires that such accounts be
placed in a conspicuous place in the office of a Union Parishad (UP), to allow for
public inspection.7 Further, all objections or suggestions relating to such public
documents and received from the public are to be taken into account by the UP.
It is also a duty of the Government to print copies of all rules and regulations and
make them available at UPs for inspection by the public free of cost or for sale at
a nominal price.8 In practice, experience has unfortunately not been so
straightforward, particularly given the dominance of UP Chairpersons who decide
who should and should not have access to information, the absence of a strongly
voiced demand for transparency from people at the community level because of

1
http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Spring04/Rick/thelaw.html as on 29 October 2008.
2
2008 Florida Statutes, Chapter 119.011 (12).
3
http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Spring04/Rick/thelaw.html as on 29 October 2008.
4
Performance Accountability and Combating Corruption, ed. Anwar Shah, chapter 6, Malcolm
Russell-Einhorn World Bank, Washington DC, 2007, p. 202.
5
ibid. p. 203.
6
The Local Government (Union Parishads) Ordinance, 1983, Section 80: Khan, Dr Borhan Uddin
(2007) Compendium of Laws on or Having a Bearing on Union Parishad, SHARIQUE, Dhaka, p
42.
7
Section 48. Ibid., p.33.
8
Section 85. Ibidi., pp. 44-45.

The Governance Link, issue 5, September 2008 3

high levels of illiteracy, and the absence of a monitoring system that ensures
transparency obligations are being carried out. A recent study found that
“improper compliance of procedures and lack of vertical and horizontal
accountability converts this important public institution into more of a private
chamber of the Chairmen.”9

However in some UPs where honest and sincere people have been elected as
Chairpersons, proactive steps have been taken to give information to people.
Facts and figures relating to annual income and expenditure, estimates and cost
of development projects that are being implemented, information relating to cash-
transfer schemes to the underprivileged and availability of essential agricultural
supplies are prominently displayed on noticeboards.10 The Local Governance
Support Project that was established in over 1000 UPs since mid-2007, provides
guaranteed funding for developmental activities only upon submission or proof of
people’s participation in the drawing up of the project proposals. Continuation of
funding is assured only if there is adequate proof of transparency with regards to
funding and expenditure-related information.11 This stringent requirement
coupled with extensive capacity-building activities has begun to increase
people’s participation in ward and UP meetings.

In India under the Panchayati Raj system introduced in the mind-1990s, elected
representatives make up the local councils in the village, block and district levels.
The laws require that the annual statement of accounts be read and budgets
approved at meetings of the village general assembly (Gram Sabha) comprising
of all eligible voters in the village.12 Adequate notice is required to be given for
these meetings which are held on public holidays to enable a majority of the
people to participate, as on other days they are busy earning their livelihood.
During the early years, only lip service was paid to such obligations. However,
due to the sustained intervention of civil society organisations and state-
sponsored rural development institutes aimed at raising awareness and building
capacity particularly through greater participation of women, compliance levels
have risen in recent years. In addition to attendance at meetings, the panchayat
laws in several states make provision for people to seek and obtain copies of
official documents held by panchayats at nominal cost. The Right to Information
Act passed in 2005 covers these bodies and places an obligation on them to

9
SHARIQUE (2007) The State of Local Governance in Rajshahi and Sunamganj, A Study
Conducted in Selected Unions, SHARIQUE, Dhaka, p 39.
10
Venkatesh Nayak, Information Flows at Local Government Level in Bangladesh: A Scoping
Study, paper commissioned by the World Bank Institute, Washington DC, 2008 (unpublished).
11
This project is being implemented by the Government of Bangladesh with the support of a
consortium of donor agencies lead by the World Bank. It is likely to be expanded to cover all
4400+ Ups in the next three years.
12
The number of Gram Sabha meetings required to be held annually is different in each state,
according to the state Panchayat Raj Act.

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proactively disclose a variety of information related to their administration,
functions, powers, budgets, and development schemes.13

In Uganda, the Local Government Act 1997 requires all budget-related meetings
to be held in public at the ward, block, and district levels. At the village level all
adults are members of the local council and are required to attend the budget
conferences. However, initial experience showed that attendance was thin. The
deliberations were not conducted in the local language and were often dominated
by bureaucrats.14 Nevertheless, civil society organisations funded by donor
agencies have undertaken capacity building programmes to increase awareness
amongst people and also their participation in the council meetings at a range of
levels.15

In countries where the value of openness is not sufficiently entrenched, civil

society organisations have played an important role in compelling local bodies to
open up their records for public scrutiny. In Venezuela in 2004, the local branch
of Transparency International established the network Transparent Municipalities
(Municipios Transparentes) to address issues of corruption and the lack of
transparency and accountability in Venezuelan municipalities. The initiative
included auditing municipalities for administrative transparency via its System of
Indicators of Municipal Transparency, and providing a detailed report to the
mayor of each region on the successes and failings of the municipality. It
reported an improvement in transparency from 2005 in which only 14% of the
municipalities obtained scores higher than 50% to 44 obtaining more than 50% in
2006.16 Subsequently, Transparencia Venezuela won a 2007 Changemakers
award for the Municipios Transparentes project. In Sri Lanka, the Centre for
Policy Alternatives has been working to promote transparency in Pradeshiya
Sabhas which are local level authorities established under the Pradeshiya
Sabhas Act, 1987.17 These bodies have powers to regulate, control and
administer matters of public health, public utility services and public
thoroughfares.

13
The Right to Information and Panchayati Raj Institutions: Uttar Pradesh as a Case Study
(CHRI, 2007) Sohini Paul, p. 12. See also Chhattisgarh as a Case Study (CHRI, 2006) Sohini
Paul, p. 14; and Punjab as a Case Study (CHRI, 2006) Sohini Paul, p. 11. See:
http://www.humanrightsinitiative.org/publications/default.htm as on 6 November 2008.
14
Daniel R. Mullins, “Budget Process” in Anwar Shah (ed.) Local Budgeting, Public Sector
Governance and Accountability Series, World Bank, Washington DC, 2007, pp. 262ff.
15
USAID supported intervention in the districts of Gulu and Kamuli are said to have increased
people’s participation, particularly women in the decision-making processes of local bodies. See
Decentralisation in Uganda: http://www.usaid.gov/regions/afr/ss02/uganda5.html as on 6
November 2008
16
http://www.changemakers.net/node/698 as on 28 October 2008.
17
Presentation made by Ms. Sriyanie Wijesundara of CPA at the “Securing Access to Information
in Sri Lanka: Civil Society Capacity Building Workshop” organised by CHRI, Friedrich Naumann
Foundation für die Freiheit and the Institute for Democracy and Leadership in July 2008
(unpublished).

The Governance Link, issue 5, September 2008 5

Much of the focus of freedom of information campaigns has been on national
governments. While it is important to focus on central powers and prioritise the
need for transparency and accountability at the national level, in reality, as
people’s immediate needs are more likely to be at the local level, it is crucial that
people’s rights to access information at the lower levels of government be taken
seriously. This is because “the negative effects of poor governance, including
alienation and corruption, are more acutely felt at the local level.”18 Alienation and
corruption in developing countries is likely to have a large impact and will result in
poverty and the lack of resources to challenge it.

The amount of information that local government bodies collect, generate and
use in the course of their work is public property held by them on behalf of the
people. Providing people access to this information, and ensuring that decision-
making meetings of local councils and committees are participatory, can enable
people to feel they are being heard and taken seriously, and ensures that
decisions having a direct impact on them are more likely to be made in a
principled and honest way. Indeed, it is difficult to construct a counter argument
that shrouding local government in secrecy serves any greater good.

18
“Tools to Support Transparency in Local Governance” March 2004 p.2. See:
http://www.transparency.org/tools/e_toolkit/tools_to_support_transparency_in_local_governance
as on 29 October 2008.

The Governance Link, issue 5, September 2008 6