Management through decentralisation and local economic development: a condition for sustainable urbanisation in Africa

Abstract: Many developing countries including those in Africa thrive to provide decent public services to their citizens; this includes the provision of basic services such as water and electricity. However, the initial findings revealed that, lack of capacity, adequate leadership; corruption and good governance are some of the reasons why these countries failed to achieve their development objective, especially in most African countries. Western countries after the World War II (WWII) put in place the Marshall Plan to assist countries in Europe that were seriously damaged by the atrocities of the War. The Marshall Plan was a whole developmental package for reconstruction and development strategy; this included the rebuilding of infrastructures, schools, hospitals and the entire reorganisation of state apparatus. From there on many international organisations were created to entrench and consolidate the notion of democracy in most of these European countries. The notion of democracy and good governance therefore became the flagship for administration in Europe. Since then nation building and societal cohesion initiatives have assist local, provincial and national governments to adopt policies that use national resources effectively for continually building Europe in order to maintain its economic and political power. Organisations such as the United City of Local Government (UCLG) based in Spain and its related organs across the world have encouraged cities of countries members to develop through decentralisation strategies since decentralisation is perceived in the current context as a condition to sustainable urbanisation and local economic development. This paper is therefore based on the premise that, urbanisation could be effective only if decentralisation policy is at the centre of development initiatives. In this way the paper argues, local authorities could utilize local resources to ignite local economic development (LED) through for instance trade activities and investments.LED initiatives aim at empowering local stakeholders to utilise business enterprises, labour, capital and other local resources effectively to maximise local benefits in order to contribute to poverty reduction and the uplifting of citizens life conditions. The paper is divided into four major parts. The first part gives a background of the notion of decentralisation, urbanisation and local economic development. The second part gives an account on how the above are inter-related. The third part provides the challenges faced by urbanisation in achieving local economic development and part four is presented as conclusion and recommendations