Focus on Mali's decentralisation

Outgoing Malian president Alpha Oumar Konare will be remembered for having made important strides in the country's decentralisation programme. The next president will have the daunting task of ensuring that the small steps already made materialise into the development Mali's 11 million people are longing for. The concept of decentralisation has existed since the time of Mali's first president Modibo Keita whose socialist regime ruled from independence in 1960 to 1968. Under the 1968-1991 military regime of General Moussa Traore, the strategy was not fully exploited. Most Malians agree that it was under Konare, who will step down from being president on 8 June, that Mali's decentralisation really took off, radically changing the centralised administrative systems inherited from French colonialists at independence in 1960. "Decentralisation is the transfer of authority from the central government to local populations. It allows them at the local level to take care of themselves," Aboubacrine Ag Indi, technical advisor at Mali's Commissariat au Development Institutionel (Commission for Institutional Development) told IRIN in the capital Bamako. Deputy Commissioner, Noel Diarra, added that it is a strategy of development where, through the transfer of competence, the populations select their leaders who champion development. Decentralisation can be equated to local governance. Under Konare, decentralisation led to the creation of 703 communes, 49 cercles (circles), eight regions and the district of Bamako. These communes, cercles (circles) and regions embodied the programme as they represent the entities that now have the authority to take care of some of basic developmental needs. Diarra said that decentralisation flourished under Konare because he loosened the state's grip on the day-to-day running of the "res publica". Under Keita and Traore "the nature of the state was not compatible with decentralisation," he said, adding that decentralisation needs state authorities to recognise and accept the participation of other national actors in the country's development. On the flip side decentralisation reinforces the democracy. Much as Malians have shown an interest in taking control of their own development, not all aspects of government could be decentralised. Foreign relations, national security, currency and formulation of government policies remain the sole prerogative of the state because these are the areas through which a state's manifests its existence and authority. Everything else can be handed down to the local authority. In Mali's case, education and health have emerged as the most popular ones. Since 1990, total budgetary expenditure on health has risen from 1.6 percent to 2.1 percent, with a corresponding rise in average life expectancy from 42 years to 50.9 years, the UN 2001 Human Development report said. Some 65 percent of the population had access to improved water and 69 percent to sanitation facilities. Communities were expected to collect funds to build their own schools, basic health centres, water pumps as well as provide other minimal service such as the issuance of basic administrative documents. But financial and human mobilisation became an obstacle in cases where communities were unable to collect the funds. The government, however, provides financial assistance to each community based on a list of criteria including population and physical size of community, level of development, capacity to raise funds and distance from urban centres. About 26 billions FCFA (US $36 millions) was allocated for this between 1999-2002. Diarra said there were other obstacles too. The first was psychological. Some people, he said, were still counting on the state to provide everything, and were not making any effort to help themselves. The second obstacle was the state's capacity to conduct the programme. Poor central government organisation, concentration of decision-making and inadequate capacity were some of the weak points that the state needed to address. Other critics said the state lacked sufficient financial capacity to properly conduct decentralisation while the population had no money to invest. In 1999, Mali had a per capita GDP of US $240 and 73 percent of the population lived on less than a dollar day, the UN report said. A former prime minister, said that it was illiteracy blocking decentralisation, saying that people who could not read nor write could not be expected to conduct local governance activities. According to the UN Mali had an adult literacy rate of 39.8 percent and a youth literacy rate of 64.5 percent while school enrolment was 28 percent- 50 percent in primary schools. Officials at the commission reject the direct link between illiteracy and local governance. Ag Indi gave the example of illiterate farmers and salesmen in Mali, like in other African countries, who for years have managed their business, farm production and others, have conducted year-end inventories, and are today financially well off. Soumana Doumbia, the head of the NGO, CENAFOD, which has been contracted several times by the Konare government to conduct surveys and studies, also rejected the education/governance amalgam. What was important, he said, was to build upon existing knowledge and abilities. He also added misinformation or lack of information as another obstacle holding back some communities from accepting decentralisation There are also those who say that decentralisation has done nothing for the country. However as the UN magazine, Africa Recovery, pointed out in its April issue "decentralization on its own is no guarantee of improved basic health provision for children or of anything else". Citizens must be the driving force behind it. Malians avoid comparing communities in terms of level of governance. However there are factors that differentiate one community to another. Northern Mali, home of a violent rebellion and on the border of the Sahara desert, faces an uphill battle in its own development. Mali's next president needs to push for a greater development of the northern region. Malians also avoid assessing decentralisation, saying that it's too early to tell. For Diarra, the key element is to ensure that citizens sustain the enthusiasm and interest they have shown and are willing to go through the necessary steps and hurdles. "We can not say that decentralisation has not brought a minimum of comfort, as little as it may. For an assessment, I would not be overly joyous but it is not negative. We can do better," Ag Indi said. For a country whose human development index was ranked at 153 out of 162 by the UN Development programme in 2001, Mali's decentralisation could turn out to have been one of the strategies that helped improve the lives of many ordinary people.