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Advocacy and Mobilization for Decentralization

Assessing the Institutional Environment of Local Governments in Africa 2013, 1st Edition

The aim of this publication is to alert the national governments of African countries and their international partners to the urgent need to create an environment conducive to the initiative and autonomy of action of cities and local authorities, by proposing a rating that enables them to situate themselves in relation to the minimum standards required for cities and local authorities to be in a position to make a significant contribution to the effective management of urbanization in Africa. The assessment is based on a qualitative approach. Countries are ranked on a scale of 1 (lowest) to 4 (highest), based on twelve indicators. This enables countries to be classified in 4 colors: (1).

Green, countries with the most favorable environment for cities and local authorities, according to the standards adopted; (2) yellow, countries with a fairly favorable environment for cities and local authorities, but where certain elements need to be improved; (3) orange, countries where progress towards a favorable environment for cities and local authorities requires major reform efforts; (4) red, countries with a generally unfavorable environment for cities and local authorities. For each country, the publication outlines reform proposals that serve as a basis for technical and financial support from UCLG Africa and its partners. The 2012 Edition, the first of its kind, covers 50 African countries, and uses ten criteria to assess the institutional environment of local authorities.

Assessing the Institutional Environment of Local Governments in Africa 2015, 2nd Edition

Three years after the publication of the first assessment, United Cities and Local Governments of  Africa and Cities Alliance are pleased to present the 2015 edition of Assessing the Institutional Environment of Local Governments in Africa. Ten criteria were identified in 2012 to assess the enabling environment that each African Government provides for its cities and local governments. Each country was analysed to assess its progress with – and their constraints on – decentralisation, and then rated on a scale of 10 to 40.

Three years later, this new assessment presents both the current situation, and a means to measure progress. Generally, the news is good: the overall trend is one of modest but tangible improvement in the latitude afforded by Governments to city and local government action. Across the continent, the average rating in 2015 rose by 6% over the 2012 ratings. Twenty-three countries have made progress, mainly in Southern Africa and, to a lesser extent, in East Africa.

With some variation from country to country and across regions, these improvements are in four main areas: financial transfers from central governments to local authorities; transparency in the management of local affairs; citizen participation; and the frameworks established for local government capacity building. On the negative side of the equation, a clear majority – some three-quarters of the countries – received ratings below average and still need to make major progress in implementing structural reforms.  

Paradoxically, the existence of urban strategies was the assessment criteria that saw the least progress. The recently adopted Sustainable Development Goals’ recognition of the role played by cities is particularly significant in Africa, the continent with one of the highest rates of urban growth, especially among small and medium-sized cities. Through the adoption of its roadmap Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want, the African Union clearly sees cities as drivers of the continent’s structural transformation.

This vision will feed into the October 2016 Habitat III Conference, where the international community is expected to adopt a new urban agenda – an agenda that will need African cities and local governments to be sufficiently empowered and resourced to meet Africa’s challenges and opportunities.

Assessing the Institutional Environment of Local Governments in Africa 2018, 3th Edition

The purpose of this publication is to to alert the national governments of Africa of the urgent need to establish an environment conducive to the initiative and autonomy of cities and local authorities by providing an assessment that allows them to benchmark themselves against the minimum standards required for cities and local authorities to contribute significantly to effective management of urbanization in Africa.

The evaluation is based on a qualitative approach. Countries are ranked on a scale of 1 (the lowest level) to 4 (the highest) and on the basis of twelve indicators. It makes it possible to classify countries in 4 colors:

(1) Green, the countries with the most favorable environment for cities and local authorities based on the the standards adopted.  (2) Yellow, a country whose environment is rather favorable to the action of cities and local authorities, but of which some elements need to be improved.  (3) Orange, a country whose progress towards a favorable environment for cities and local authorities requires major reform efforts. (4) Red, a country whose environment is generally unfavorable to the actions of cities and local authorities.  

For each country, the publication outlines proposals for reforms that serve as a basis for technical and financial support from UCLG Africa and its partners. The 2018 edition, the third, covers 53 African countries, excluding Libya. It includes the original ten criteria used to assess the institutional environment in the 2012 and 2015 editions and adds two new ones that correspond to Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement, namely climate change and gender. 

Assessing the Institutional Environment of Cities and Subnational Governments in Africa 2021, 4th Edition

The 2021 CEE Rating report covers 53 African countries, excluding Libya. It considers the original 10 criteria used to assess the institutional environment created by the State for subnational government action as recorded in the 2012 and 2015 editions and adds the two new criteria introduced in 2018, namely, the mechanisms put in place to ensure women’s participation in the political life and governance of subnational governments, and the consideration of the role of subnational governments in climate action, to be in line with the recommendations of the Agenda 2030 setting the Sustainable Development Goals.

A score is assigned to each criterion on a scale of 1 point (lowest level) to 4 points (highest level). The sum of the scores for the selected criteria ranges from 12 points (lowest score) to 48 points (highest score). As in previous editions, the application of the different criteria allows the attribution of a synthetic rating (ranking) to each country. As in previous editions, the application of the different criteria leads to awarding a synthetic score (ranking) to each country. This synthetic rating is then the subject of an explanatory analysis leading to the identification of possible reforms with a view to improving the enabling institutional environment created by the State for subnational governments.

In order to identify the trends observed in the evolution of the institutional environment created by the States for the action of subnational governments between 2012 and 2021, it was agreed for the sake of consistency – to consider only the rating obtained for the 10 criteria initially retained for the 2012 editions. While there has been a slight increase in the number of countries where the institutional environment created by the State is favourable to subnational governments, the general trend is that in most African countries the institutional environment created by African States is generally unfavourable or rather unfavourable to subnational government action (31 of the 50 countries analysed).

Yet the Heads of State and Government of the African Union expressed a strong political will in favour of decentralization when they adopted the African Charter on Decentralization, Local Governance and Local Development in June 2014. The difficulty in translating the political will for decentralization of most States into legal and institutional arrangements favourable to the action of subnational governments shows the importance of continuing to advocate for the adoption and implementation of the decentralization policy. However, not everything is negative in this landscape, which is characterized by little progress in the implementation of the decentralization policy. In fact, 42 out of 53 countries have taken measures to improve the latitude given by the State to subnational governments.

The indicators that have contributed most to this improvement are, in order of importance, and as a percentage of the number of countries concerned in relation to the total number of countries considered:  

  1. Citizen participation in subnational governance (13.5 per cent); 
  2. Financial transfers from the State to subnational government (12.6per cent);  
  3. Performance of subnational governments, transparency in subnational management (11.2 per cent); and 
  4. The urban strategy (11.2 per cent).

The fact that the adoption of an urban strategy is on the agenda in a large number of countries is encouraging and a sign that those countries are concerned with the implementation of the new global urban agenda and the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal No. 11 (SDG 11) which says: “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”. 

Local in the global financing ecosystem

This report presents the activities carried out by UCLG Africa in 2022.  It starts off with the message of the Secretary-General, then gives an overview of the actions performed by UCLG Africa and by the different programs throughout the past year. 

Sub-national governments in Africa

So far, the number of African governments was unknown. This publication lists for the first time the subnational governments that exist in Africa. There are sixteen thousand and eight (16,008), including fifteen thousand four hundred and fifty (15 450) Grassroots governments (local governments), Ninety-six (96) Intermediate governments, and Four Hundred and Sixty-two (462) Upper-Level governments. The region with the largest number of local and subnational governments is West Africa, which alone accounts for nearly 35% of this number, that is to say five thousand five hundred and thirty (5,530) subnational governments. North Africa is the second largest region with four thousand four hundred and six (4,406) local and subnational governments, all levels combined.

East Africa, with 22.7%, has three thousand five hundred and seventy-two (3,572) subnational governments. Central Africa and Southern Africa have respectively One Thousand Five Hundred Ninety-One (1,591) and Nine Hundred and Nine (909) subnational governments. The publication provides information about their distribution per level of government in each region, their mode of governance (elected councils and executive, elected councils and appointed executive, and appointed councils and executive), as well as about the room for maneuver offered to them by their central governments (quality of their institutional environment).

International fashion festival in Africa

The celebration of Rabat, African Capital of Culture, is conducted under the responsibility of a steering committee chaired by the Wali (Head Governor) of the Rabat- Salé – Kenitra Region, The steering committee comprises the Minister of Youth, Culture and Communication; the Minister of the Interior or his representative; the President of the Council (Mayor) of the City of Rabat; and the Secretary General of UCLG Africa. Rabat, African Capital of Culture has a triple ambition:

 (1) to showcase the influence of the cultural heritage and creativity of Africa, so that the latter regains its full place in the cultural heritage of Humanity; (2) to promote the adoption of cultural policies within African local authorities so that culture is the fourth pillar of sustainable development, relay national cultural policies at the territorial level, and develop new mutually beneficial relationships between local authorities and professionals from the world of culture, arts and creative industries;

and (3) to contribute to the emergence of a network of cultural places in Africa likely to stimulate the production of cultural works and creative activities, and for African Capitals of Culture to be regular meeting places to have Africa fit in a more positive way within the global market for arts, culture, and creative industries, whose value is currently estimated at 2.5 trillion US dollars per year, to which Africa currently represents only 1% of this global market.

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Voluntary sub-national localization of SDGs in Tanzania

The United Republic of Tanzania Government is committed and working towards the achievement of the SDGs and their localization. Thus far, progress is fast as mentioned earlier in this post – COVID-19 period despite other factors such as the effect of Ukraine War, drought and other economic situations. The presented studies lay a benchmark and provide a framework for the implementation of the SDGs for LGAs in Tanzania. 
LGAs are a critical partner in national development as can be seen by the role they play in project implementation and service delivery at the grassroots level.

Likewise, LGAs are a vehicle through which the localization of SDGs at local authority level could be attained. The report has found out that there is need to boost the localization process to enhance SDGs coordination mechanism from national to local level. This is meant to inter alia, communicate, promote, and mobilise LGAs to facilitate the SDGs localization efforts. ALAT is beer placed to assume the responsibility of coordinating SDGs uptake and implementation at the LGA level.

City of Yaounde VLR 2020

Some 12 years ago, Yaounde City designed its Urban Master Plan, which provides a coherent framework for the development of the city with the overall goal of improving the living environment of city dwellers. In 2020, the city is reviewing its Urban Master Plan, with the intention to reinforce its coherence with the city development strategy. The participation of Yaounde City in the Voluntary Local Review (VLR) of the Sustainable Development Goals seeks to inform the review of this master plan, but also to inform revisions of the strategy in order to place the city of Yaounde on the path to sustainability.

In participating in the VLR, the pleasure was mine to note that, our conscious effort to improve the living environment and the livelihood of the Yaounde city dwellers were actually responding to some of the essential targets of the SDGs most relevant to Cameroon, in general, and to the city of Yaounde in particular.  Our participation in this review has been an opportunity to learn. It has also helped us to take stock of the progress made in the implementation of our urban strategy. Yaounde City is more than ever willing to share with other cities around the globe and the international community the story of its journey to sustainability. At the same time, we want to continue to learn from the experiences and stories of how other cities are integrating the sustainability concerns in their development plans as well as how they are tackling common urban challenges. 

World Day for African and Afro-descendant Culture

The commemoration of the JMCA is the result of more than five years of efforts made to UNESCO by the African Network of Cultural Promoters and Entrepreneurs (RAPEC), with the support of UCLG Africa.

«History of Africa, History of Humanity » is the theme chosen for the JMCA commemoration in 2023.

The exchanges during the commemoration of JMCA 2023 showed that the world has much to gain from recognizing and adopting the values of respect for nature, humanity and sharing that are characteristic of African and Afro-descendant cultural identity.

These exchanges have highlighted the need to recognize the indissoluble solidarity between all as a condition for the survival of human beings on the planet Earth they share with the rest of the living, and on which the survival of humanity is threatened by the competition of all against all, which has led to productivism, itself at the origin of the movement of cultural homogenization of the world around consumerism.

Report on the state of human resources of local governments in Africa

Africa has chosen the Decentralization Challenge to strengthen democracy and the rule of law, to promote individual and collective freedoms, to integrate the diversity that characterizes the continent, and to gain in terms of subsidiarity, inclusion, participation and proximity.

Several instruments have been adopted since the 2000s to support this process, whether at the global level, at the African level, or at the level of each Member State.

This report presents the state of human resources in the African territorial administrations. It is intended to be produced every three years and published on the occasion of the Africities Summits. Our ambition is to help catalyze the reflection on the unavoidable requirement to invest in the Human Capital of local authorities to win the bet of Decentralization.

Join us in taking action for a better future for Africa! Your city can host the next event

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