Abstract

This study focussed on the extent to which CEFAM has enhanced decentralization through the capacity building of council officials. Effective implementation of decentralization calls for well equipped, trained and efficient local government officials, but the ineffective implementation of decentralisation raises a doubt if CEFAM which is the lone local government training centre in the country is carrying out its mission of impacting skills, knowledge and the required managerial competencies for its trainees to spearhead local developmental projects. The research adopted the Self-Empowerment theory propounded by Berth Honnadle in 1979. This theory lays emphasis on the sustainability of acquired skills for the benefit of anybody that acquires it. The researcher adopted a mixed method of data collection, which are qualitative and quantitative methods using the case study design. Data was gathered from primary and secondary sources. Primary data was gotten through the use of questionnaires, interview guide and observation, while secondary sources include books, magazines, journals, articles, CEFAM records and internet sources.  The population for this study was eighty-three while the sample was sixty. The findings reveal that CEFAM does not have an updated curriculum to meet the rising needs of councils, the modules are not up to standard and the institution does not have well qualified trainers and so their trainees come out without proper training leaving the mayors dissatisfied with their activities. Based on these findings the study recommends that, CEFAM as a professional training institution should be more practical than theoretical. Again, the syllabuses should be reviewed regularly so as to reflect current needs and demands of councils.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

All around the world in matters of governance, decentralisation has been at the centre of policy experiments in the last two decades in most developing and transition economies in Latin America, Asia and Africa. The World Bank has even embraced it as one of the major governance reforms on its agenda (Bardhan 2002:186). On account of its many failures, the centralised system of government has lost a great deal of legitimacy and decentralisation is widely believed to promise a range of benefits. Some of these benefits include the fact that it reduces the tight role of the State by fragmenting central authority and introducing more intergovernmental competition and checks and balances. It is also viewed as a way to make governments more responsive and efficient. In countries with rampant ethnic conflicts and separatist movements, decentralisation is regarded as a way of diffusing social and political tensions and ensuring local, cultural and political autonomy (Bardhan 2002:189).

The major trend in decentralization was administrative de-concentration. In the context of de-concentration processes, different ministries transfer their functions and authority to regional and/or local out-posts (Janda, 2005:23). This limited form of decentralization only concerns relations between central level organs and their lower tiers. De-concentration means that decision-making remains at the centre, the other levels of government being limited to transmitting orders and implementing decisions (Jager & Harry,1997:20). Though decisions regarding crucial issues are made at the centre, the lower levels of government with de-concentrated authority can by delegation, make decisions concerning less important issues (Banik 2006: 40).  When they initiate a de-concentration process, governments seek mostly to bring their services closer to citizens either by moving part of their personnel to a particular location, or by assigning some responsibilities to regional or local authorities, while retaining administrative control over decisions taken locally (Eriksen, Stein Sundstøl, 1999:71).

As the twentieth century drew to an end, people around the world began to clamor for a greater voice in the way they are governed (Epstein, T. Scarlett, 1998:18). Groups that have historically been denied power now demand it, and central governments are increasingly unable to resist their demands (Doornbos & Martin, 2004:120).

This trend has many causes. It has been attributed to the economic failure of the centralized, authoritarian state (with the consequent alienation of important support groups); the decline in the threat of war and external aggression in most of the world (with the consequent rejection of strong authoritarian government); and the emergence of educated, urban middle classes (with the consequent decline in traditional patron-client relationships between the government and the governed)Crook, C. Richard & Sverrisson, Sturla Alan. (2001: 70).

National governments have responded to decentralization in several ways. Some have become more democratic. Twenty-five years ago, only one-third of the world’s countries held competitive elections (Cowen &Shenton1996:51). Today, 60 percent do. Governments are also decentralizing—shifting responsibilities and resources to sub-national units of government (Bidus & Mark, 1995:89). Both measures provide a means of maintaining political stability and conceding political power within a formal, rule-bound decision-making system.

Although the overriding objective of decentralization may be political stability, the devolution of authority and certain functions to local governments also has implications for more traditional developmental goals (Barnes & Barry, 1988:27). On the positive side, decentralization can improve the efficiency and responsiveness of the public sector by bringing decision making closer to citizens (Webster, 1999:44). On the negative side, decentralization raises the risk of macroeconomic instability. The issue is not whether governments should decentralize or not—this is dictated by political circumstances—but rather how to accommodate underlying political pressures so that the developmental potential of decentralization can be realized and the risks minimized (Törnquist2004:62).

Strategies for decentralization vary according to the circumstances of individual countries. Nevertheless, the experience of the past 15 years provides some lessons that are applicable everywhere. Perhaps the most important is that a system that is based on a coherent, explicit, and stable set of rules works better than one that is not (Theobecke, 1992:31). These rules need to encompass three aspects of the intergovernmental relationship: the division of national political power between national and sub-national interests; the functions and resources assigned to sub-national governments; and the electoral rules and other political institutions that bind local politicians to their constituents (Spragens, 1990:94).

Decentralization is not new in Africa. According to Weinsten (1972:263), since 1917 there have been at least four waves of decentralization in francophone West Africa—after each of the World Wars, shortly after independence in the early 1960s, and in the current decade. Some francophone Central African countries also decentralized just before independence (Weinstein 1972:264–266), and others after independence (Gellar 1995; Therkildsen 1993). The Anglophone and lusophone African countries have also seen multiple pre- and post-colonial decentralizations.

In the colonial period, decentralized government, called “association” by the French and “indirect rule” by the British, was set up as a means to penetrate and manage the rural world (Mamdani 1996). These systems were created to manage Africans under administrative rule rather than to enfranchise them. Although now condemned by history, association and indirect rule were accompanied by laudable idealist justifications in which their purveyors believed (Alexandre 1970:65–68; Buell 1928; Perham 1960). Liberal anthropologist, Mair (1936:12–14), who, like many other analysts, deemed the systems of indirect rule and association to be equivalent, praised indirect rule as a progressive form of community participation allowing self-determination.

At independence African governments inherited a system in which local governments were tools of administrative management. As postulated by Oyugi (2000:16), under this system, so-called “customary” authorities were privileged as the “representatives” of the rural world and the prefects, commandants des cercles and district officers were the appointed supervising managers. The coercive abuses of the colonial state delegitimized local governments and customary authorities. Nevertheless, colonial policy set up the infrastructure for the central state to continue managing rural affairs. They did not leave the structures as they found them, but reformed them to further strengthen central roles. For example, governments at independence depoliticized the role of local government in the Anglophone countries by deliberately playing down the role of elected councils in policy and decision making (Oyugi 2000:16).

In the post-colonial period, according to Therkildsen (1993:82), local government had two prominent features: (i) regardless of regime type, ruling groups sought to control local-level public affairs, and (ii) local social groups generally avoided or disregarded sub-national political-administrative organizations. Therkildsen (1993) further explain that after independence, governments across Africa continued to use local governments as administrative units, and major functions of local governments—such as health care, education, road construction and local taxation—were transferred to central government control. Elections to local councils were also abolished or centrally controlled. The tendency toward centralization in the two decades following independence reflected the politics of this heyday of military rule, during which at the time governments were trying to consolidate political power (Therkildsen:p. 82).

Decentralization was used to expand the reach of the state, so reforms took the shape of de-concentration, extending central administration into the local arena. This was reinforced by the period’s dominance by one-party states and socialist governments, which did not create the space for elected local governments. There was little popular participation in local government. De-concentration was designed to reinforce “verticality” (UNCDF 2000:2).

In the 1980s and 1990s, structural adjustment programs, requiring the cutting down of central governments, forced many governments to develop decentralization reforms. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the elections in South Africa, these reforms were infused with a new and more democratic language. As one United Nations agency emphasized in the 1990s, “political decentralisation has assumed a new meaning, away from the imposition of centralised monolithic values, towards a much more rights-based culture” (UNCDF 2000:3). Decentralization is now being promoted in a context of pluralist discourse, emphasizing greater representation of citizens as well as state reforms toward market-based development with structural adjustment programs.

The promising range of benefits of decentralisation encouraged Cameroon to officially adopt a decentralisation policy in 2004 following Law No. 2004/17 of 22 July 2004 on the orientation of decentralisation, Law No. 2004/18 of 22 July 2004 to lay down rules applicable to Councils and Law No. 2004/19 of 22 July 2004 to lay down rules applicable to regions. These decentralisation laws emphasise the empowerment of Regional and Local Authorities in Cameroon. As the process of decentralisation matures, capacity building for local governance has become crucial for improving the capacity to manage development in a decentralised manner. In terms of capacity building, Centre de Formation pour l’Administration Municipal (CEFAM) also known in English as Local Government Training Centre (LGTC), is the lone State owned institution that is charged with the responsibility to ensure the implementation of decentralisation through capacity building.

Plans to create the Local Government Training Centre started in 1963 with the exchange of correspondences between the office of the Prime Minister in Buea at the time and the Minister Delegate to the Presidency, Ministry of Finance and Planning. According to file No. E 79Local Government Training Centre Buea, (Buea National Archives), the functions of the Centre were to be two-fold. Firstly, to train Local Government staff in local government technical aspects and secondly to broaden the mental horizons of local government staff and sharpen their consciousness of the unity of the federal Republic. After the exchange of correspondences, the Local Government Training Centre went operational following the circular of the Minister Delegate to the Presidency No. 13/PF of 27th August 1963, with the support of the British Government through its Technical aid Program. The Local Government Training Centre is a public establishment created by Presidential Decree No. 77/494 of 7 December 1977. Before this decree was passed in 1977, there were long term plans to create a Local Government Training Centre in Buea in the former west Cameroon.

1.3 Statement of the Problem

Effective implementation of decentralization calls for well equipped, trained and efficient local government officials. These officials are known to be the most appropriate and promising vehicles for scaling up sustainable development and good governance in a country, thus, they need good capacity building before stepping into this important role. Boschmann (2009:23), in this situation, explains that governments and development partners have become aware that simply increasing the level of local government funding without ensuring that local government absorptive capacity is in place may not address the challenges associated with local service delivery. Grants to local governments are increasingly designed to include performance criteria. This means that capacity building of local government officials should be associated with their output in the provision of local needs.

Rosensweig and Kopitopoulos (2010:16), also emphasise the importance of developing an enabling environment at the local government level with the primary focus on developing the capacity of the officials in relation to implementation. This therefore, means that capacity building of councils officials should be for the purpose of easy implementation of decentralisation.

With the understanding of the above explanation, decentralisation therefore, has to be best manifested in a strong, autonomous and participatory system of local government only after building the capacity of the officials concerned in the process.

Following the 2004 laws on decentralisation, councils have been given greater responsibilities to ensure the implementation of decentralisation in Cameroon. However, effective implementation of decentralisation in Cameroon and the South West region in particular still seems to be far-fetched. This causes one to wonder if CEFAM which is the only local government training centre in the country, being the main instrument in training for the implementation of decentralisation, is achieving its mission of impacting skills, knowledge and the required managerial competencies for its trainees to spearhead local developmental projects.

The ineffective implementation of decentralisation may also cause one to doubt if CEFAM provide training that is up to standard to enhance decentralisation. If this doubt is true, then the performance of the CEFAM ex – trainees in the enhancement of decentralisation on the field after graduation might not be the best.

Such a situation can lead to strenuous working relationships between the council authority and the appointed CEFAM ex-trainee as in some cases, the local authority who is the mayor, deliberately decides not to work with the ex-trainee because he or she thinks that his or her output would not be the best.

This study attempts to investigate the extent to which CEFAM has enhanced decentralization through capacity building.

1.4 Research Questions

The problem identified above lead to the following research questions for this study.

1. Are the modules, sub modules and their contents provided by CEFAM relevant to equip council officials with the needed knowledge to facilitate the implementation of decentralisation in Cameroon?
2. What is the role of CEFAM in facilitating the process of decentralisation in Cameroon?
3. What are the challenges faced by CEFAM ex-trainees in the exercise of their duties of local service delivery?

1.5 General Objective and specific objectives of the study

1.5.1 General Objective of the study

The main aim of this study is to investigate the extent to which CEFAM has enhanced decentralization through the capacity building of council officials.

1.5.2 Specific objectives of the study

1. To determine whether the modules, sub modules and contents of CEFAM training program are relevant to equip council officials with the needed knowledge to facilitate the implementation of decentralisation in Cameroon.
2. To examine the role of CEFAM in facilitating the process of decentralisation in Cameroon through its capacity building program.
3. To evaluate the challenges encountered by CEFAM ex-trainees in the exercise of their duties of local service delivery.