The Potential for Decentralization to Promote Local Development in the Municipalities in Mozambique.

Abstract

From early 1990s, the quest for local development has increasingly generated debates and spurred up the interest of international donor agencies, academia and think tanks, supporting decentralization in developing countries as part of public administration reform. This is also evidenced by the case of first 33 municipalities in Mozambique created in 1997 under the Law 2/97. For the quest on local development over the last 20 years (1998-2018), the main question Mozambicans ask is: why decentralization without local development? In terms on methodology, a literature review, exploratory studies and field work were carried out from 2017 to 2021, whereby key informants were interviewed bringing up the voices of citizens, mayors, local businesspeople, ministers, students, academics, parliamentarians, journalists and public servants across the first 33 municipalities in Mozambique. In terms of theoretical and conceptual framework this paper uses theories of public administration, development studies and concept of developmental state. To analyse the quest for local development as a contribution of decentralization, this paper is framed under three aspects: the understanding of what local development is, determining factors, and who and how local development can be promoted and, why this is important for decentralization process. This paper argues that local development can be met when decentralization takes a holistic approach, whereby factors such as endogeneity (cultural, values), incremental planning for targeted investment in economic sector, territorial integration, institutional articulation and developmental elites constitute the foundational block for creating an enabling environment for the local government to play developmental politics. It concludes that local development at municipality level is the fulfilment of the promises of decentralization, namely, efficient governance, institutional equity, citizen participation and provision of basic services in quality.