12.07.2015 Views

From Poverty to Power Green, Oxfam 2008 - weman

From Poverty to Power Green, Oxfam 2008 - weman

From Poverty to Power Green, Oxfam 2008 - weman

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

2 POWER AND POLITICS I RULE, THEREFORE I AMHowever, in many other cases, decentralisation has made littledifference <strong>to</strong> poor people, and in some cases may have made mattersworse. <strong>Power</strong>ful local elites can hijack the process and devolve graft,rather than power. Local governments, particularly in poor areas, oftenhave neither the money nor the technical expertise <strong>to</strong> provide qualityservices. Decentralisation that assigns responsibilities without matchingthem with resources undermines the redistributive role of nationalpublic spending and may increase inequality, as rich areas find it fareasier than poor ones <strong>to</strong> raise revenue from their inhabitants.Like other <strong>to</strong>ols of development policy, decentralisation requireswell-organised, confident social movements that can press foraccountability and avoid co-optation by local elites, as well as governmentcommitment and capacity <strong>to</strong> move funding and technicalresources <strong>to</strong> the local level: in other words, an active citizenry and aneffective state.TRANSFORMING WEAK STATESIn many parts of the developing world, states bear little resemblance <strong>to</strong>the effective models described above. With a few notable exceptions,in sub-Saharan Africa, Central America, and Central Asia stateshave failed <strong>to</strong> deliver more than brief bursts of development beforesliding back.Bad governance is not a life sentence: numerous states that oncewould have been branded ‘failing’ have turned things around.Malaysia went from a post-independence meltdown of ethnic rioting<strong>to</strong> being an industrial giant. Economist Ha-Joon Chang points <strong>to</strong> hisown country, South Korea, where in the 1960s government officialswere sent by the World Bank <strong>to</strong> Pakistan and the Philippines <strong>to</strong> ‘learnabout good governance’. 148In Africa, Botswana showed that decolonisation and the ‘curse’of massive deposits of diamonds could be turned in<strong>to</strong> developmentsuccess, while Mauritius has successfully diversified out of sugardependence in<strong>to</strong> textiles, finance, and <strong>to</strong>urism (see the case study onpage 192). More recently, Ghana and Tanzania have strengthened theirpublic institutions, while Rwanda, Mozambique, and Viet Nam havesuccessfully rebuilt their economies after devastating conflicts.101

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!