I was delighted to be invited to a Zimbabwean symposium in Nottingham and I would like to applaud the organisers and speakers for their efforts. It is through talking, debating, pooling synergies and thrashing out differences that Zimbabweans can make headway.
The symposium highlighted complications around political terminology, specifically decentralisation and devolution. Although some understood the terms I thought it was important for everyone to understand them in order discern facts from political rhetoric. I felt there was a need to write a simple article on decentralisation and devolution. In so doing I will explain the two terms, their implications and how politicians mesmerise the public by using political jargon and buzzwords.
Many government documents and political publications use the terms decentralisation and devolution interchangeably. However the context in which the terms are used is very important because one of the terms is broad and the other is specific. Typically decentralisation is a much robust and inclusive term while devolution is a calibrated and specific term. Having said that lets start by lightly defining decentralisation.
What is Decentralisation?
Decentralisation refers to the broad range of ways used in transferring decision making from the centre to lower levels which may be regional or local. The decision making transfer obviously comes with some powers, responsibility and accountability. This transfer of power is done through different forms of decentralisation or a mixture depending on the circumstances and objectives of the process. There are mainly three ways of decentralising decision making namely:
• Deconcentration,
• Delegation and
• Devolution.
Deconcentration: refers to transfer of administrative functions through the relocation of central administrative bodies to different geographical areas.
Delegation: is the transfer of managerial and regulatory functions to other bodies and agencies which maybe local, regional or national such as quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations (QUANGOS).
Devolution: is the transfer of powers, rights, assets and Local resources to a local government, communities or lower central government within the national laws.
Why Devolution?
Proponents of devolution argue that Zimbabwe should be divided into five provinces and power should be devolved to those provinces. What’s more is that they want regional governments to be created in those five provinces. More importantly they believe that devolution gives local government autonomy and allows local citizens to participate more in influencing local decisions. It is this very point that has been merged with unequal development of provinces and the failure of resolving the 1980s Atrocities. Devolution proponents have justified their argument by drawing evidence from the United States and the United Kingdom. I have deliberately left out South Africa because it uses a hybrid system which is more of decentralisation than just devolution regardless of what they call it.
Challenges for Devolution in Zimbabwe
In many ways Zimbabwe has cross cutting issues on administration, independence of public bodies, human rights, equality and political power dispersal. It is clear that devolution does not address all those issues holistically. Devolution partially addresses the issue of political power but fails to jump the other huddles because the process is done in line with national Laws. This shows that central government will always have the advantage of retaining some real powers in order to control the regional governments.
Devolution may be very difficult in Zimbabwe considering the size of country and the distribution of resources. The idea of devolving power to five central governments with local authorities creates a top down heavy structure which is so expensive and resource draining. What’s more is that resources are not proportionately distributed across Zimbabwe which means some areas will be worse off under devolution. This shows that inequalities could worsen under devolution. Moreover to redress these inequalities central government will have to control the budget which takes the whole process back to a unitary system.
Looking at other countries who implemented devolution from the outside may be misleading because there is lack of practical rationality. What’s more is that longitudinal indicators need to be employed when measuring processes such as devolution. Typically devolution in United Kingdom which was once seen as successful is now showing different results which suggest that it has failed. Devolution in United Kingdom has failed to satisfy Scottish Nationalists who are now pushing for independence. Similarly devolution will be the first step towards fragmenting Zimbabwe in that it will start as devolution then transform to secession.
The idea of justifying devolution in Zimbabwe using the United Kingdom model is now redundant. Indeed some politicians who used to be proponents of devolution have noted these shortcomings and they have shifted to secession and federalism. There are two important lessons that can be drawn from this.
Firstly, policy transfer (importing policy) should be done with special consideration of the political, economical, social and legal context of the country adopting the policy. This means policies and strategies that are successful in other countries may not be compatible with the context of the adopting country. Secondly devolution involves power which explains the instrumental rational behaviour of politicians who support it. This shows that politicians are motivated by political power rather than national interest.
In conclusion devolution has been successfully sold in Zimbabwe because of the unequal development of provinces and the failure of resolving the 1980s Atrocities. Politicians over amplified devolution beyond its purpose, by so doing they managed to hypnotise their party members and some members of the public. However devolution on its own is not capable of dealing with these issues. What’s more is that its negative impact far outweighs its benefits. Decentralisation instead has the hybrid ability of addressing the unequal development of provinces and the 1980s atrocities without breaking the country. The developments in Scotland tell us more about the short comings of devolution and they will even tell us more about secession in a few years to come.
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