The Utilization of Local Government for National Development
| Author | Albert Gorvine |
| Date | 01 October 1965 |
| Published date | 01 October 1965 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1099-162X.1965.tb00650.x |
The
Utilization
of
Local
Government
for
National
Development
by
ALBERT
GORVINE
'THIs
paper
attempts to indicate a new
and
different role for local
govenunent
ｾｮ
national development,
and
suggests recommendations for a new emphasis
In the entire relationship of the local government to the national government.
'The
problem
of the role
of
local government in national development has been
the subject
of
much
discussion in recent writing
and
at
international conferences.
In a
summary
of two conferences late in 1961,
Mr.
Emil Sady,
Chief
of the
Local Government Section, Division for Public Administration,
United
Nations
Department
of
Economic
and
Social Affairs, presented some
of
the
Significant findings of a
Cambridge
Conference on Local Government in Africa,
September, 1961,
and
a
United
Nations Conference in Geneva, October, 1961.
Bis
paper
represented a consensus of these two meetings.
Specifically
Sady
listed briefly some
of
the ways
that
local government
can
Playa
part
in national development.'
(a) "decongesting government
at
the centre
and
thereby freeing national
leaders from onerous details
and
unnecessary involvement in local
issues,
and
facilitating co-ordination
and
expediting action
at
the local
level;
(b) increasing the people's understanding
and
support
of
social
and
economic
development activities
and,
as a result, gaining the benefit of their
own
contribution to these activities,
and
of
personal
and
group
adjustments
to needed changes;
(c)
making
programmes to foster social
and
economic
betterment
at
the
local level
more
realistic
and
lasting;
(d)
training people in the
art
of
self-government;
and
(e) strengthening
national
unity.
This stands as a list
of
the virtues
of
decentralizing
power
to local authorities
for the purposes
of
national development.
The
task of decentralization
of
power to local government is, however, a
difficult one.
In
the
same article,
Sady
indicates
that
both
conferences recog-
nized
that
"only
local authorities which
are
capable
of
making
effective use
of
discretionary power
and
financial independence
are
capable
of
fulfilling the
PUrpose
of
local government".2 This
statement
raises a serious question
concerning the capabilityof traditionally established,
structured
and
empowered
lOcal
governments to fulfill even their traditional purposes
without
support
from
------------------------------------
NDr. Gorvine is Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College of the
City
University of
ｾｷ
York,
and
Executive Director of its Research
Centre
in
Comparative
Politics
and
Ad-
ｾｬｮｩｳｴｲ｡ｴｩｯｮ
and
this article is a modified version of the
Paper
he presented, at
Ankara,
in
i>ebruary, 1965, to the
CENTO
Conference on the role of Local
Government
in
National
eVclopment.
J!Emil
J.
Sady,
"Improvement
of
Local
Government
and
Administration
for
Development
Purposes"
oUrnal of Local Administration Overseas. Vol.
I,
No. 31,
July,
1962, p, 138.
2Ibid., p.
141.
225
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