GOLD Report I - UCLG

289Box 2Subsidiarity - an issue at the heart of autonomy—is viewed in different waysby academics, political organizations, and development institutionsOates, 1972World Bank2004, p. 189European CharterArt. 4.3“Assign to the lowest level of government possible, those local public goods and services which can best be delivered at that level."“The lowest tier of government that can internalize the costs and benefits of the service.”“Public responsibilities shall generally be exercised, in preference, by those authorities which are closestto the citizen.”minor share of the population, while a fewstrong local governments of big cities holdan important share of the population (seeFigure 1). Take the example of Latin America,a region with 16,400 units of localgovernment and a population (2005)of nearly 550 million. Less than 5 % oflocal governments – those in big cities –contain more than half the population,while more than 53 % of local governmentsin small towns and rural areascover less than a tenth of the population.Similar proportions are found in most regions(see Figure 1).In a nutshell, the issue of organizing localgovernment units is one of balancing atension between two imperatives. Effectiverepresentation is needed to servedemocracy, but this tends to require moreunits of government. Against this expansionarypush is a constricting pull toreduce the number of units, or fold theminto higher tier governments in order toachieve economies of scale and moreefficient service delivery. Virtually allcountries in the middle and many in theadvanced stages are engaged at somelevel with this issue.ResponsibilitiesThe logic of assigning responsibilities tolocal governments is to achieve efficacy orefficiency in delivery of local goods andservices to citizens. And though the guidelineprinciples of subsidiarity and autonomyprovide a normative standard forgovernments, in practice, states find manydilemmas when implementing subsidiarity(See Box 2).States also face many temptations to pushthe limits, like shifting responsibilities tolocal governments with little or no consultationand without corresponding financialresources. The issues related to responsibilitiescan be summed up as follows: a)clarity and consistency in observing subsidiarityand autonomy of choice; b) achievingefficiency in allocation and in deliveryof services, an issue that involves publicand/or private provision of service; and c)the impact of technology.Subsidiarity and Autonomy in Choice.Most countries have devolved a core set oflocal functions, and many countries graduallyadjust these, as circumstancesrequire. On the one extreme are China’sbig cities that handle supra-local functionslike judiciary, pensions, and economicdevelopment. A more typical arrangementinvolves local public services, like waterconnections, streets, solid waste, localmarkets, urban and land use planning, andprimary care in health and often education,social policy and sometimes economicdevelopment and housing.In Europe the most important variationsrelating to powers and responsibilitiesoccur in the fields of education, health, andsocial security or benefits. Broadly, localgovernments are responsible for such servicesin the Nordic countries and to a large