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Effective service delivery was the highest priority for those in local government because it was
understood to be “the reason for the existence of our office” by participants. While service
delivery was not prioritized by participants in the executive workshop – who considered both
internal organizational capacity and management and the enabling environment to be the areas
in most need of support – it was considered an “end goal” that was based on support to other
priority areas. According to one participant, “without change at the heart of the structure then
service delivery cannot happen at the other end.”
External outreach and inclusiveness was a low priority for both the executive and local
government participants, though the content of workshop discussions reflected an underlying
concern with the lack of public “buy-in” to government institutions and local councils in
particular. Similarly, inter-governmental relations were considered a low priority in both
workshops, yet the workshop discussion demonstrated that participants felt that a lack of
communication between ministries and between central and local governments was a key
challenge to effective governance.
The high priority changes in the high priority categories across the two workshops (service
delivery, enabling environment, and internal organizational capacity and management) reflected
common concerns about lack of clarity in legal and policy frameworks, most notably in relation
to decentralization. Priority changes in the service delivery category
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were: to “make service
delivery responsibilities clearer” in a comprehensive decentralization policy, and to increase
public engagement in service delivery by raising awareness of citizens’ rights and
responsibilities in relation to local government.
The executive workshop participants, who saw service delivery in terms of the level of capacity
of the government, particularly at local level, referred to the need for institutions tasked with
delivering services to have the requisite capacity and resources to undertake their work. It is
interesting to note that in terms of capacity, the issue of personal skills and knowledge was not
prominent; the focus was on ‘external’ constraints and therefore there was little consideration of
training requirements.
Effective Service Delivery – High Priority
Across both workshops, participants’ understanding of what a government should do centered
upon the provision of services, in which opportunities for local economic development and job
creation were included as “services.” Unsurprisingly, for members of local government, service
delivery is all the more paramount due to their proximity to end users; councilors spoke of being
at the “frontline” of poverty and therefore failing in their jobs if they could not help ease the
situation faced by their local communities through the provision of basic services such as
sanitation and healthcare. Members of the executive – who are arguably somewhat removed
from the “frontline” - were able to conceptualize in more detail the necessary conditions for
service delivery to take place, and therefore identified changes in the “structure” of how service
delivery is organized and managed.
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From local government workshop participants who prioritized this category.
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By prioritizing other categories.
