Decentralization in Africa and the resilience of traditional authorities: Evaluating Zimbabwe’s track record

Zimbabwe has undergone various phases of institutional reform during colonial and post-colonial times either co-opting, distorting or denying the presence of traditional authorities, but somehow none of these institutional engineering episodes managed to uproot them. What in fact happened is successive waves of political institutions designed and put in place during these reforms withered away. Zimbabwe’s traditional authorities are still there and they continue to play a big role in the daily lives of rural populations.This paper looks at one of the most important endogenous factors influencing the workings of decentralization in Zimbabwe. Successive waves of formal institutional change that took place during Zimbabwe’s colonial and post-colonial history have been unable able to uproot the influence of traditional leaders. Due to their home-grown legitimacy, various traditional authorities continue to play an ever-present role in the lives of people in rural areas. But, as it is the case throughout most of Africa, the powers of traditional leaders have mostly been uncodified under modern law and these power relations tend to be rather informal and culturally inaccessible to most outsiders. Consequently, the scholarly literature has not been able to systematically acknowledge their pervasive influence. The article concludes with a reflection on how the influence of traditional authorities can be translated into the democratic and progressive empowerment of rural populations in the developing world

The role of traditional leaders in Zimbabwe: are they still relevant?

As in many other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, the institution of traditional leadership has always been central to the governance of communities in Zimbabwe. Traditional authorities take various forms and shapes in many African countries including Zimbabwe. In Zimbabwe, for example, the structures and systems of the institution of leadership in Ndebele, Shona, Kalanga, Tonga and Venda ethnic communities have some remarkable differences even though they also depict certain similarities. Currently and generally, the institution of traditional leadership comprises chiefs, headmen and village heads- in order of hierarchy. Village heads are physically the closest to the people and thus, have the most interactions with the citizens in rural areas. Prior to the colonisation of Zimbabwe, the institution of traditional leadership was the sole governance structure with legitimacy to govern derived from tradition and culture. Traditional leaders had fused "governmental" powers and authority, ie judicial, administrative and political. Soon after colonisation in 1890 the colonial government dismantled, and in some cases replaced, traditional governance structures with "modern" State institutions as it sought to advance its interests and exercise firm control over the Black population

Entrenching decentralisation in Africa: A review of the African Charter on the values and principles of decentralisation, local governance and local development

The African Union (AU) adopted the African Charter on the Values and Principle of Decentralisation, Local Governance and Local Development (African Charter on Decentralisation) in 2014. The African Charter on Decentralisation was inspired by the Yaounde Declaration of 2005 which was adopted by the African Ministers in charge of Decentralisation and Local Development in their respective countries. The Yaounde Declaration stresses the importance of a participatory democracy where local communities, groups and organisations can deliberate on their own needs, develop their own programmes for change, and influence policy processes to respond to those needsThe African Union (AU) adopted the African Charter on the Values and Principles of Decentralisation, Local Governance and Local Development (African Charter on Decentralisation) in 2014. The Charter seeks to promote decentralisation as a vehicle for improving the livelihood of people on the African continent. It is the first to provide a decentralisation framework or model framework for local government for the African continent. Like most international instruments, member states of the AU will only be legally bound by the Charter once they have ratified it. Most Member States of the AU have not ratified the Charter due to varying reasons, including, the fact that the ratification process in many countries is often cumbersome. Non-ratification could also be due to the fact that there is not yet a clear understanding of the meaning and significance of the decentralisation framework which the Charter provides. Thus, the actual impact of the Charter on changing the poor state of local government on the African continent upon coming into operation is as yet unknown. This problem is inflated by the fact that there is present no scholarly commentary on the Charter, given that it is relatively new. This article provides a critical analysis of the Charter, looking at its strengths and weakness, against the background of the international literature on decentralisation and ‘best’ practices on local government

Participatory Budgeting in the City of Kwekwe (Zimbabwe) A perspective on the Issues, Trends and Options

Towards the end of 2017, as has been the case every year, the Kwekwe City Council produced a budget outlining its various activities for the 2018 financial year. The unveiling of the 2018 budget was, among other things, accompanied by disgruntlement, confrontation, street protests and dejection by the inhabitants of the City. At the centre of the problem, city inhabitants argued, was the failure of the City Council to proactively engage and involve them in the budget formulation and claims that previous budgets have failed to tackle poor service delivery. On the other hand, the City Council (comprising the administration and elected officials) rebutted these claims although there was general acceptance that the level of service delivery does not meet the expectations of the citizens of Kwekwe. The article, in the context of contributing to the debate on good governance, challenges the claim that the budgeting process in the City of Kwekwe is participatory

Entrenching decentralisation in Africa: A review of the African charter on the values and principles of decentralisation, local governance and local development

The African Union (AU) adopted the African Charter on the Values and Principles of Decentralisation, Local Governance and Local Development (African Charter on Decentralisation) in 2014. The Charter seeks to promote decentralisation as a vehicle for improving the livelihood of people on the African continent. It is the first to provide a decentralisation framework or model framework for local government for the African continent. Like most international instruments, member states of the AU will only be legally bound by the Charter once they have ratified it. Most Member States of the AU have not ratified the Charter due to varying reasons, including, the fact that the ratification process in many countries is often cumbersome. Non-ratification could also be due to the fact that there is not yet a clear understanding of the meaning and significance of the decentralisation framework which the Charter provides. Thus, the actual impact of the Charter on changing the poor state of local government on the African continent upon coming into operation is as yet unknown. This problem is inflated by the fact that there is present no scholarly commentary on the Charter, given that it is relatively new. This article provides a critical analysis of the Charter, looking at its strengths and weakness, against the background of the international literature on decentralisation and ‘best’ practices on local government

Local government in the 2013 constitution of Zimbabwe: Defining the boundaries of local autonomy

The 2013 Constitution of Zimbabwe recognises local government as the lowest tier of government in a three tier arrangement. Thus, local government, composed by urban and rural local authorities, now owes its existence directly to the Constitution and not to legislation as was the case under the previous constitutional order. The Constitution assigns to local authorities the responsibility to ‘manage’ and ‘represent’ the affairs of people in their respective areas. Every local authority is given the ‘right to govern’ its jurisdiction with ‘all’ the necessary powers to do so, including devolved powers. Thus, the Constitution recognises that, for the benefits associated with decentralisation to be realised, local authorities require a certain measure of local autonomy. The autonomy which this Constitution affords to local government is however unknown and unexplored, especially from a constitutional law point of view. In this article, we measure the degree of local autonomy guaranteed by the 2013 Constitution