Legal empowerment for local resource control

BOX 4. TOOLS FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY
Besides end-of-term elections, day-to-day downwards accountability of local
government bodies is important to promote local resource control. In
Malawi, a tool has been developed to facilitate this, with specific regard to
forest management (“local government accountability tool”). It entails raising
awareness about forest management issues among forest users; undertaking
participatory assessments of forest resources; supporting the emergence of
credible community-based organisations; and building the capacity of these
organisations to demand better performance from local government
authorities. The last element includes defining performance standards;
demanding access to documentary evidence of forest management decisions
and other relevant information; pressing local government periodically to
hold local meetings to discuss local needs and compliance with performance
standards; and seeking access to information concerning use of financial
resources (Kafakoma et al, 2005).
Similarly, in Senegal IED Afrique has developed a tool (“Participatory
monitoring and evaluation of decentralisation”) to better enable citizens to
monitor the work of local governments (on this, see Guèye, 2005)
Where resource rights are vested with local government bodies (e.g.
Senegal, Tanzania), checks and balances against intra-community elite
capture are to be provided by the democratic process characterising elected
local government bodies – including non-discriminatory universal suffrage
and democratic accountability mechanisms. In Senegal, the elected council
governing “rural communities” is responsible for allocating and
withdrawing land use rights to individuals and groups (article 195 of Law
96-06 of 1996). In Tanzania, elected village councils allocate to individuals,
families and groups “customary rights of occupancy” of indefinite duration
on village land. In the performance of these management responsibilities,
the principles of trusteeship apply, and allocated rights are regulated by
customary law (section 18 of the Village Land Act). With regard to
trusteeship principles and application of customary law, interesting
parallels exist between the role of customary chiefs in Ghana and of elected
local governments in Tanzania.
Elite capture problems may nonetheless exist, with the elected council
being dominated by a few families having stronger (land tenure or other)
status under customary law, greater capacity to mobilise resources from the
outside world through political or other connections, and/or more
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