Institutional drivers of adaptation in local government decision-making: evidence from Chile

What Motivates Local Governments to Invest in Critical Infrastructure? Lessons from Chile

“…Previous studies on Chilean municipalities have showed that municipal organization improvements in terms of accountability, transparency, and internal coordination have stimulated both local government DRR and environmental protection efforts [20,26,27]. Relationships between operational rules, autonomy of councilors, balanced power relations, and repeated routines seem to have fostered productive initiatives in local government, interactions with external actors, awareness, and risk reduction efforts.…”

“…In Chile, for example, risk reduction is part of the local governments' mandate. They have powers to guide local development (e.g., regulations, plans, and actions) and budgetary and administrative autonomy, and are responsible for local welfare and development [26,27]. DRR is linked to broader policy domains, including land-use regulations, public infrastructures, delivery of social services, and environmental management.…”

“…International frameworks and national governments recognize the need to strengthen local governments to improve critical infrastructures as a way to prepare for such challenges [1,2,14,28], but progress has been slow, especially in developing countries [14]. For example, in a recent review of Chilean efforts, OECD (2016) recommended more investments in both new infrastructure projects and maintenance of existing systems, as well as integrating climatic-change considerations, but most local governments have been slow to alter the historical patterns of public investment decisions [26,29]. The problem is, that local governments often struggle to produce and maintain such essential public goods for their citizens due to various factors, many of which are related to weak or missing institutions [1,14,26].…”

“…There is extreme variation in the way Chilean local governments decide to spend their public resources [26]. Despite being exposed to very similar levels of risk and hazards, some invest nothing, while others invest a high proportion of their budgets.…”

“…Where local contexts are affected by risks and hazards, municipal organization with regard to accountability mechanisms and routines, internal organization, and transparency may affect decisions that help transform policies into actions and increase the likelihood of positive decisions in critical infrastructure [14,34,50,[53][54][55]57,58]. Supported by expert opinions (public workers, consultants, researchers), one part of the literature draws attention to the accountability of local representative institutions [20,26,27,50,[53][54][55]71,73,87]; for example, in terms of integrity and responsibility of those who exercise positions of power (as opposed to corruption practices), and power equilibrium between the mayor and council [27,54]. Good practices in governance and accountability foster competition and widen the channels through which information on risk conditions flows, so that they have access to local government decision-making processes [1,14,49,73,74].…”