GOLD Report I - UCLG

LATIN AMERICA172United Cities and Local GovernmentsDecentralizationin the Andeancountries hastaken placethroughfar-reachingconstitutionaland legislativereforms,in a relativelybrief timepalities, which were demonstrating modernizationin local management.Although República Bolivariana de Venezuelaofficially has a federal system, it is a stronglycentralized country, heightened by the modelof sustained development in financingpublic expenditure through the distributionof oil income. In 1989, the Ley Orgánica deDescentralización, Delimitación y Transferenciasdel Poder Público (Decentralization,Delimitation and Transfers of Public PowerAct) drove the decentralization process, ofwhich the first achievement was thedirect election of mayors and governors.The process ground to a halt in the secondhalf of the decade. In 1999 the BolivarianConstitution seemed to re-launch the process,but subordinated municipal autonomyto the Ley Orgánica del Poder PúblicoMunicipal (Organic Law of Municipal PublicPower) and its fiscal responsibilities to aLey Nacional (National Law) in 2005. Thetension between centralism and local autonomyincreased with the Ley de los ConsejosComunales (Community Councils Act of2006), which set up a network of localorganizations directly connected to thepresidency in order to channel local financing.At the start of 2007, the Ley de HabilitaciónLegislativa (Enabling Act) was passed,authorizing the national government toregulate the provincial states and municipalities.In the unitary countries, the debateabout decentralization focused on the relationshipbetween the national governmentand the municipalities. The processadvanced more slowly at the intermediatelevel which, in fact, worked in tandemwith the national level. In the majority ofSouth American and Central Americancountries, intermediate administrationsdepend on the central power and are theresponsibility of an official appointed bythe latter. Despite this, there is a growingtendency toward the popular election ofintermediate authorities, as already occursin Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia andParaguay.Decentralization in the Andean countrieshas taken place through far-reaching constitutionaland legislative reforms, in a relativelybrief time.In Colombia, after the extreme centralizationof the 1960s and 1970s, and the politicalcrisis expressed in the civil strikes of the1970s and early 1980s, a clear decentralizingprocess began in the middle of the1990s. The 1991 Constitution laid the basesfor a unitary and decentralized territorialgovernment, with autonomy of the territorialbodies: departments, municipalities anddistricts. Moreover, indigenous territories,regions and provinces were created toregroup bordering departments and municipalities.Direct election of mayors(1986) and of departmental governorswas thus established by 1992. Throughoutthe 1990s, abundant legislation was passedregulating different aspects of localmanagement, such as the mechanismsof transfer and participation, distribution ofresponsibilities and territorial organization.By the end of the 1990s, problems of indebtednessand the economic crisis made itnecessary to review the transfer system andimpose a regime of austerity on sub-nationalgovernment spending, along with aredistribution of competences.Bolivia implemented an original decentralizingprocess that recognized its multi-ethnicand multicultural character bystrengthening two levels of sub-nationalgovernment: the municipalities and thedepartments. After many election-free decades,in 1987 municipal elections wereheld. In 1994, the Ley de Participación Popular(Popular Participation Act) was passed,strengthening the municipalitiespolitically and financially and strongly promotingthe participation of grassrootscommunities. In 1995, the Ley de DescentralizaciónAdministrativa (AdministrativeDecentralization Act) benefited the departmentsat the intermediate level, grantingthem elected assemblies. In 1999, the newLey de Municipalidades (Municipalities Act)was passed. The departmental prefect was