Daily Times

In terms of institutional reforms, decentralization is critical aspect of local governance. It is both important to look at the theoretical aspects of decentralization as well as to see how district-level social development plays out in practice. This article refers to some literature (Faguet and Shami 2015; Bari and Malik nd; PILDAT 2019) to illustrate the discussion.

In the overall literature on developing countries, a question is raised regarding the politicians having short-range horizons and yet decentralizing by taking some of their powers away to often address a ‘discrete’ and ‘short-term’ political issue. Yet, decentralization brings about fundamental changes in the nature of governance. It has long-term effects on society, politics, functioning of the government, public authority, fiscal and macroeconomic balances, internal structures of the political parties, politicians’ careers, amongst others. The degree of ownership of decentralization reforms is critical to its sustainability or failure.

There is ‘time-horizon mismatch’ between the politicians incentive to carry out decentralization and its effects, after being implemented. Politicians give away some of their powers and discretion when they go along the decentralization route. It is tantamount to committing to an institutional policy change at the cost of their ‘discretion’. That is why in Pakistan, we have seen the non-representative governments implementing decentralization to earn legitimacy and the political governments largely rolling it back, making it ineffective, or minimal at the operational level.

Decentralization is a success when it continues to bring about administrative and political changes over time in the local governance. When implemented, it leads to the emergence of the new ‘patterns of governance’. However, if the changes brought about through decentralization are overturned with the passage of time; authority and resources are again recentralized, then decentralization is considered a failure.

The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government in 2008 overturned the devolution to the local governments that was introduced some years back. Though under institutional pressures, all provincial political governments passed their local government laws from 2010 to 2013 and elections at the local level were held in phases in various provinces from 2013 to 2015; yet the political parties running the governments at the provincial level have not been too enthusiastic about decentralization. Local government terms have expired or expiring in some of the provinces in 2019. Decentralization is perceived as a ‘threat’ to the clientelistic aims of the politicians. The literature refers to the local governments also functioning in a clientelistic manner.

Decentralization is a success when it continues to bring about administrative and political changes over time in the local governance. When implemented, it leads to the emergence of the new ‘patterns of governance’

It might be worthwhile to review how intra-districts governance has changed local governance. Though Bari and Malik’s paper has a different focus, it offers some insights on the local versus provincial government’s public finance politics in the education sector.

Just as the National Finance Commission Award (NFCA) allocates resources to the provinces on the basis of the mutually agreed formula, similarly the provincial finance commission award is supposed to disburse funds between the districts on the basis of a similar principle. However, none of the provinces are using any objective formula to distribute resources to the districts. It is due to lack of planning, low priority accorded to establishing an objective criteria, and political economy considerations.

In education, there has been some progress on achieving primary education at the universal level. Girls’ enrollment has increased from 40% in 2000 to 45% in 2014; however, there are still serious equity issues. Only 43% of the children from the poorest families are enrolled in the primary education, and only 27% of them graduate at the primary level. There are also huge inter-provincial variations; out-of-school children in Balochistan are likely to be twice the number of children in Punjab. There are also disparities along other socio-economic categories. In terms of dysfunctional schools and missing facilities; parts of southern Punjab and interior Sindh are as worse as Balochistan.

It might be worthwhile to make a point by going beyond the literature. There is no doubt that the centre has treated (and continuing to treat)Balochistan as a ‘colony’ for resource extraction for much of its history; and it is the key cause behind the significant under-development of the province. However, the political, social, and provincial/local governmental elite also shares the blame for the poor social development in Balochistan. The politicians in Balochistan have seldom prioritized development over their other more immediate concerns. Similarly, the PPP government that has been running the government in Sindh for over ten years now is considered to have delivered poor social development and governance in Sindh. MQM despite getting substantial funding for Karachi in the past has not fared that much better.

Coming back to literature, Punjab has made an attempt to do outcomes-based planning for education at the district level by developing performance reporting on the basis of key indicators such as teacher absenteeism, enrollments, infrastructure. However, this governance measure operated through a centralized monitoring system is largely considered to be ineffective. There are also huge intra-district disparities within the provinces, notably in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

There is a need to strike a balance between the devolution of powers from the centre to provinces and provinces to the local government level. There is also the need to devise both incentives and checks and balances, so that decentralization is implemented leading to improvements in local governance and social development in a sustainable manner. Decentralization should not be overturned with the change in regime. There is need to evolve a consensus amongst the wide spectrum of political elite and institutions of the country.

The writer is an Islamabad-based social scientist