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Approaches to strengthening local government: lessons from Sri Lanka
Author(s) -
SLATER RICHARD
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
public administration and development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.574
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1099-162X
pISSN - 0271-2075
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1099-162x(199705)17:2<251::aid-pad932>3.0.co;2-2
Subject(s) - local government , relevance (law) , accountability , service delivery framework , government (linguistics) , sri lanka , process (computing) , public administration , business , service (business) , economic growth , economics , political science , marketing , computer science , linguistics , philosophy , socioeconomics , law , tanzania , operating system
This article sets out to describe recent approaches to strengthening local government within the framework of the World Bank's Municipal Management Programme (1985–95) in Sri Lanka. The article examines a number of innovations adopted within the programme that are of general relevance to the task of strengthening local government throughout the developing world. The article briefly outlines the background to the present system of local government showing that, whilst existing structures and functions remain relatively weak, a number of important innovations have been introduced to assist with the process of strengthening local resource mobilization and improving performance in service delivery, and enhancing certain aspects of accountability, particularly those areas concerned with the allocation and use of public funds. Since a number of these innovations have wide applicability to the process of local government strengthening and reform it is hoped that this article will demonstrate the practical relevance of certain key innovations for practitioners and policy makers elsewhere. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Public Admin. Dev. Vol. 17 : 251–265 (1997). No. of Figures: 0. No. of Tables: 0. No. of Refs: 13.