GOLD Report I - UCLG

ASIA-PACIFIC58United Cities and Local GovernmentsThere is aconsiderablevariation in theAsia-Pacific regionin both the numberof tiers of localgovernment and inthe averagepopulation sizecovered by localgovernmenttralization. This is compounded by politicalcompetition at sub-national levels: rulingparties at the national level may get coldfeet about decentralization if they perceivethat the opposition may gain control oflarge numbers of the decentralized units.Three-way political conflicts among union,state and local governments in India wereone of the main reasons for the 1992constitutional amendments designed toprotect the interests of local governmentsfrom excessive state interference. Suchpolitical conflicts continue to hampereffective decentralization in some Indianstates.Finally, the OECD countries in the region,Australia, Japan, the Republic of Korea andNew Zealand, also emphasize decentralizationas part of their ongoing administrativereform process. Australia, Japan and NewZealand have a long history of local government;so, recent experience here hasbeen of relatively modest reform to dealwith particular problems or changed circumstances.A series of reforms to localgovernment acts in all the states of Australiaexpanded the general powers of localgovernment during the 1990s. An Inter-Governmental Agreement in 2006 expandedlocal government responsibilities inthe fields of planning, health, environmentalprotection and cultural activities. InNew Zealand, the Local Government Act of2002 granted local and regional governmentbroad general powers.In Japan, House and Diet Resolutions ondecentralization were passed in 1993 basedon the premise that the centralized administrativesystem was unable to cope withrapid developments at the local level. In1995 a Law for the Promotion of Decentralizationwas passed, in 1998 a DecentralizationPromotion Plan was initiated and in2004 the Local Government Law of 1947was amended to strengthen the administrativeauthority of cities.In the Republic of Korea, a series of decentralizationlaws and policies were introducedin the 1990s that increasingly recognizedthe importance of local autonomy,including the introduction of direct electionfor local government executives. As inJapan, they were largely driven from thecenter. One writer has described the actualpractice of decentralization in Korea as a“curious mixture of deconcentration anddevolution” (Seong 1998:13). A uniquefeature of the process was the SaemaulUndong, a community-based movementestablished during the rule of PresidentPark Chung Lee in the 1970s. Althoughthese were mobilized ‘top-down’ by centralgovernment, they eventually laid the foundationfor a variant of ‘citizen participation’that made a significant contribution to Koreanrural development.II.4. Tiers and sizeof local governmentsThere is a considerable variation in theAsia-Pacific region in both the number oftiers of local government and in the averagepopulation size covered by local government.The territorial organization of localgovernment in selected countries is presentedin Table 3. Two of the four federalnations in the case study countries have asingle tier of local government below thestate level (Australia and Malaysia) whilePakistan has a triple tier and India has asingle tier in urban areas and a single, doubleor triple tier in rural areas, dependingon the state. Of the eight unitary nations inthe sample, four have a two tier system oflocal government (Indonesia, Japan, Thailandand New Zealand), while three othershave a three tier system (Philippines, Koreaand Vietnam) and China has four subnationalgovernment layers. Furthermore,what is a local government tier is notalways clear, especially when there is acombination of modern local governmentstructures and of traditional or customaryinstitutions, as is usual in a lot of countriesof the region at the village level. Even thematerial evidence of such basic criteria asthe exercise of public and budgetary powermay be uncertain.