Local Involvement in National Development Planning

A survey on the inclusion of local government (associations) in the definition, implementation and monitoring of national development strategies.

Background
This survey concerns the way in which local government associations around the world are being included in the definition, implementation and monitoring of national development strategies. These development strategies come in various forms, are developed at national level, and outline the main priorities for development. In aid recipient countries, a key document is the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), which is a prerequisite for debt relief and monetary aid by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and several donors. Besides the PRSP, governments develop their own national development strategies (both long term and short term), as well as sectoral development strategies.

National development strategies such as those outlined above need to be developed in a participatory way, and include discussions with civil society as well as international donors. Besides clear-cut priorities and budgets for social, macroeconomic, and structural policies, these strategies include selected indicators, monitoring and evaluation systems, and targets. Altogether, these national development strategies have a profound effect on the formulation of development interventions in the country concerned.

Rationale for this survey
Given the impact of the strategies at the local level and the extent to which local governments are involved in the execution of national development strategies, it is important that local governments and their associations are appropriately consulted and involved in formulating these strategies.  This survey is to provide insight in how and to what extent local government associations around the world are being involved in national development planning. The outcomes of the survey will be analysed in 2016 and its conclusions will be shared in the High Level Meeting of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation in November 2016 in Kenya. In addition, concrete cases will be identified and drawn up as examples of how local government associations have been successfully and unsuccessfully involved and consulted on development priorities.

Your input is therefore of high importance. We would be grateful if you could send us the completed survey before February 19th.
 
About the GPEDC
The Global Partnership on Effective development Cooperation was established during the Fourth High Level Forum in Busan (2011) to ensure that development cooperation has the maximum impact on development results. The discussion about effective development resulted from the wish to ensure more efficient achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Whereas the MDGs were the “what”, the Aid and Development Effectiveness Agenda tried to define “how” to achieve that. The current Partnership is supported by OECD and UNDP. UCLG has a seat in the Steering Committee since April 2014. Efforts have been made by, with active participation of the UCLG Capacity and Institution Building (CIB) Working Group, to promote the role of local governments in development and decentralized cooperation as effective mechanism to strengthen them.

Question Title

* 1. On behalf of which organisation do you fill in this questionnaire?

Question Title

* 2. Does the national government consult your local government association in setting its priority areas and formulating development strategies?

Question Title

* 3. Does this require much lobbying efforts from your association?

Question Title

* 4. Is the involvement of your local government association in developing national development strategies institutionalised in any way? (multiple answers possible)

Question Title

* 5. If there is institutional involvement of the local government (association), how is that achieved? (multiple answers possible)

Question Title

* 6. Which actors are involved in the definition of development strategies at the national level? (multiple answers possible)

Question Title

* 7. To what extent are local government development plans used as input for the formulation of national development strategies in your country?

Question Title

* 8. If your country is receiving large programmes from international development partners: to what extent is local government or your local government association consulted in the drafting of country strategies of major donors (e.g. World Bank, European Commission, UNDP)?

Question Title

* 9. Is your local government association involved in the implementation of these development strategies, for example through development programmes funded by donors (e.g. localizing the SDGs, implementation of Habitat III)?

 

Question Title

* 10. To what extent are the national development strategies of donors embedded in the national development strategies of your national government?

Question Title

* 11. Please rate the extent to which you consider your local government association included in the definition, implementation and monitoring of development strategies in your country (from 1-10, 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest):

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
definition of development strategies 
implementation of development strategies 
monitoring of development strategies 

Question Title

* 12. Would you like your local government association to be included more in the definition, implementation and monitoring of (inter)national development strategies?

T