This paper is about the role of local democracy and governance to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Increased reliance on locally generated revenue, difficulties in managing networks of actors with diverse goals and objectives, imperfect flow of information, and trust deficit in stakeholders pose major challenges to achieving SDGs locally. By doing a systematic review of the recent literature on decentralisation with examples from different local governments, the paper outlines ways in which these challenges could be addressed. The paper also highlights the need for enhancing local leadership capabilities and demarcation of responsibilities among local politicians and bureaucrats, a point missed in the SDG agenda.
The policy shift towards decentralisation promises important social change in rural India, providing as it does a three-tier system of local self-governments, the
In order to overcome inefficient allocation of natural resources, there is a trend to make government more accountable to local people through decentralisation. Today, when farmers are moving away from the agricultural sector in West Bengal, India, for which water scarcity is one of the main causes, low participation in the local government are a cause for alarm. I search for the causes behind the low level of participation of local people in decision-making processes regarding water management. I analyse the complex process of decentralisation, and show how water allocation at the village level is nested within various levels of hierarchy. These involve politics over access to water and relations of power that include interactions between political parties, government agencies and the local elite. The political interference in the decentralisation process creates problems in local participation and decision-making that lead to a skewed allocation of water.
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