Local Government Reform Programme (LGRP) and the challenges of local governance in Tanzania: Local autonomy, participation, accountability and transparency

The constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania - URT (1977) contains many provisions for the Tanzanian people to participate in local decision-making processes, exercise their civil rights and hold elected and appointed officials accountable, local governments, which in practice are institutions closer to the local people, have little protection from the same constitution against some arbitrary powers of the central government regarding their roles and functions. This study investigates the potential of the Local Government Reform Programme (LGRP) to enhance local autonomy, citizens’ participation, accountability and transparency, and in this sense, to deepen the democratic rights enshrined in the constitution. Existing literature about decentralization largely lakes a macro, institutional approach in which there is limited academic analysis of the micro aspects of how people engage in various avenues for participation, control their elected leaders, access council information and control their own local revenues. However, there is a growing body of literature on this. This study pursues these concerns by investigating questions about how central-local relations have unfolded, given the past history of centralization in Tanzania; how citizens participate in various decision-making bodies at the local level; how various mechanisms for holding local leaders accountable are implemented, and whether they are well known to the key actors; and how various information from the councils is disseminated to the public. To achieve this, two case studies were employed. One is a rural council (Moshi) which was chosen for its degree of restructuring according to the Restructuring Manual (2004). The second case is an urban council (Mwanza) which is treated as a control case since it has finished all the 11 steps of restructuring its council. These case councils are analysed employing a mixed method for data collection and analysis. Six research questions are employed in investigating four areas of inquiries: central-local relations, citizens’ participation, accountability and transparency, and donor agencies present in the councils. Using path dependence as theoretical explanation, the study tried to assess whether the current LGRP is path dependent. Accordingly, the assessment of the history of the past decentralization policies in Tanzania and the findings from the case councils; the study concluded that the current decentralization is somewhat path dependent. However, it was unwise to discount other factors such as the role of national political leaders, the nature of the government in power and the legacy of ujamaa and self-reliance policies which appeared to have also considerable impact on the four decentralization policies so far attempted in Tanzania. The main findings indicate that: 1) local governments still depend for more than 80 percent of their funding from the central government; 2) there is high participation in local and national elections, but contrary to the expectations of this study, this high level of participation does not appear to be widespread in other areas such as in council, village and public meetings; 3) there are weak mechanisms for accountability and transparency both at the council and sub council levels; and 4) there is an important contribution of donors both at the macro and micro levels of LGRP in terms of finance and capacity building although this contribution seems to pose some serious concerns about the future of LGRP once donor support ends officially in 2008. As well as providing another contribution to contemporary Tanzanian local politics, this study extends that part of the literature on decentralization that focuses on the practical aspects of local government to local governance. The study intends to inform both public policy makers and academics on the challenges of decentralization and the establishment of local governance in Tanzania as evidenced from Mwanza and Moshi.