CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
- Background
In the quest for national growth and prosperity, central governments in the developed and developing world strategically increased their political and economic authority to achieve planned objectives. Good governance, a very crucial step for rapid national growth and development has the tendency to restructure the development agenda for the under-developed world and until we find sustainable solution to institutional challenges within the governance system, policy initiatives aim to improving good governance may fail to succeed. Administratively, public sector reforms should work at raising the quality of public service delivery to its citizenry and augment the achievement of core government functions.
In Ghana, decentralisation has a strong tendency of achieving good governance, improving service delivery and leading to political democratization. It was envisaged that, decentralizing the public sector should improve information, communication, and incentives to promote responsiveness and accountability. Administrative reforms in the public sector according to Westcott (1998), should seek to sustain the effectiveness in performance of the public sector services and make those services affordable for all. At the local levels, Mgonja and Tundui (2012), indicated that the drive for good governance is the increasing effort to build ownership and provide a more effective and efficient governance process with the ability of addressing local needs. This development according to Faquet (2000), in his paper ‘Decentralization in Bolivia’ reveals a more responsive needs-oriented governance with an improved cost effectiveness in public sector investment patterns that is seen in its allocative efficiency; this is expected to size
down the waste and weaknesses of the centralized system of governance.
Thus, a calculated devolution of power and authority at different levels of central government’s management and finance territories will result to sustainable rural development (Cheema and Rondinelli, 1983). Empirically, extensive experiences of decentralization in Indonesia, Morocco, Thailand and Pakistan are improvements in absolute local participation, service delivery and improved resource distribution to the local area as well as project identification, implementation and employment generation (Rondinelli, et al., 1984). In this light, decentralization that seeks to redistribute functions, powers, people or things away from a central authority should auger well for sustainable development. Responsiveness and accountability, diversity and political participation and government association with the people all ensure greater participation that brings about democracy and subsequently address real needs of the people. Decentralization brings governance closer to the people and has the potential to remove obstacles to government’s decision making, public acceptability of those decisions thereby facilitating collective cooperation and actions, this can increase the capacity for collective action, legitimacy for decision making and more trust among groups (Meagher, 1999). This indeed should aid the formulation of sustainable development goals generated or emerging from the people themselves making it most practical to support them in addressing their problems. Often motivated by the idea of bringing government closer to the people, de Oliveira (2002), explains that, decentralization can create new room for increased interaction between state agencies, traditional leaders and communities. This assertion is supported by Uphoff, et al. (1979), stating that, active involvement of the rural population leads to sustainable rural development. Thus, UNDP evaluation report (UNDP, 1999), asserts that decentralization is a way of life and state of mind that goes beyond just a process. Relative to agriculture development and management, growth of production can be seen as a major priority of government to achieving growth potential.
Therefore, an integrated package of services including, development and extension of new technologies, distribution of inputs, equipment and credit and the construction of production and transport infrastructure must be provided. Historically, agricultural extension systems in some African countries including Ghana and some Asian countries such as, India and Indonesia inherited highly centralized regimes established to control and exploit rural people rather than allowing effective participation of the rural people for sustainable rural development (Shah, 1998). According to IFAD (2016), sustainable rural growth requires inclusive rural transformation, higher agricultural productivity, off-farm employment opportunities, marketable surpluses, access to services and infrastructure and ability to influence policy that will lead to improved rural livelihoods and inclusive growth. This literally brings the decision making process closer to the people and increases their chances of improving their social welfare. Therefore politically, decentralization brings authority and public resources to the local areas by reducing governance to the local jurisdiction and making accountability and responsiveness more visible.
On the contrary, decentralization has the tendency of creating disparities between local area levels with different organizational capacity, and may bring about excessive roles in planning and management responsibilities in some areas. Cheema and Rondinelli (1983), report that, limited expertise to complement managerial capacities have resulted in weak linkage and interactive skills in Africa and Asia accounting for disappointing results from decentralization. In many cases results have been measured from the political angle and not based on efficiency and administrative effectiveness. Therefore, achievements of decentralization is placed between moderate success and failure. Fasquet (2000), has also counter argued that, evidence of decentralization both in theory and practice of increasing or decreasing the social welfare and efficiency of the people abounds with lots of generality and unclear assumptions.
Efficiency in the allocation of goods and services in line with the needs and wants of the people have fallen short of preferences of aggregate demand. Hence there is the need for a collective effort to devise appropriate steps to promote sustainable growth and development of local jurisdiction and the nation at large. Azfar et al. (1999), acknowledge the promotion of public services delivery, financing and allocation of resources for local public goods, cost recovery and accountability thus, reducing corruption as the benchmarks in measuring the impact of decentralization on organizational performance. Dominant in local areas of the developing world are farmers and persons who engage in related enterprises; therefore addressing the needs of these people means responding to needs of the agriculture sector. The prime result of decentralization is getting the local area involved in identifying their needs and proposing suitable ways to addressing their challenges. This is possible when authority and power is devolved to them and gives them the democratic will to fully participate in their developmental activities and programmes. Their inclusion brings about transparency, promotes efficiency and ensures accountability.
Primarily, the decentralisation of Departments of Agriculture is to help improve the extension services under the Ministry of Food and Agriculture by encouraging effective participation of the rural people for sustainable rural development that ensures transparency of service providers and giving accountability to service users. Therefore, strengthening the local assemblies to operate independently without interferences from the central government gives rise to a successful decentralization process.