Empowered local governments

Mpho Mokwape | Wednesday June 17, 2015 16:36

When officially opening the four day Commonwealth local government conference in Gaborone yesterday, President Ian Khama said decentralised governance had the potential to contribute to the achievements of agreed targets for any country.  “As members of the commonwealth countries we are aware that a decentralised governance framework and empowered local governments and its communities are critical to the localisation of national development and its sustainable development goals,” he said.

Khama also noted that Botswana had remained alive to the idea of localising resources to address local needs, aspirations and promoting sustainable livelihoods for its people.

He emphasised that the localisation of resources entails development, which in most cases involves the sharpening of systems to facilitate targeted inter governmental viable transfers that promote capacities and opportunities for revenue generation by local governments. “These developments also entail developing systems to ensure effective and efficient utilisation of available resources by local governments, it goes without saying that local government is critical as it provides an important interface which is a fundamental pillar in people centered development,” he said.

Khama pointed out that the role of empowered developmental governments was in achieving the goals and targets of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) agenda by 2030.

“Beyond measures to domesticate and localise the SGDs agenda, the country also reflects on some perspective in relation to the development of performance indications that our country can use to demonstrate the national commitments to localising national development,” he said. 

Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Slumber Tsogwane explained that the conference was expected to shape the Commonwealth Local Government Forum (CLGF) policies to position local government on how sustainable development could be delivered.

Tsogwane said global economic development practice recognised that local economic development (LED) was a critical component in development approaches that were capable of initiating and sustaining inclusive national economic growth, and poverty eradication. “The LED approach places emphasis on developing a national policy framework that enables central government to facilitate local institutions, local economic actors and communities to identify their needs, understand their resource endowments, mobilise resources and take joint action to grow and diversify the local economies,” he said.