© 2010 Local Government Alliance for International Development
| Greater efficiency |
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In the developing world, local councils often face the challenge of delivering services on a shoestring, in some cases against a background of unstable governance, conflict and disorder. In the UK, councils have a more stable environment, well-established governance and financial frameworks to promote efficiency and accountability. The challenge is how to change services to make them even more efficient in an era of public finance constraints. |
Councils in the developing world and in the UK face a common challenge of delivering ‘more for less’. But, while the efficiency agenda is mutual, its context is very different.>>Case studies
The London Borough of Lewisham has received Good Practice Scheme funding to work with Kingston and St Andrew in Jamaica on a project which uses social media to increase public participation and improve efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery. The project is based on the ‘Love Lewisham’ project which demonstrated an 87% reduction in the time taken to report and process issues. Lewisham has been awarded a ‘green flag’ by the audit commission for community empowerment and engagement.
Officers from Hull City Council and Freetown City Council in Sierra Leone are working together on improving contract & PPP procedures. The project aims to ensure value for money and transparency in commissioning of services, with a particular focus on water, sanitation and waste management.
Funding has recently been made available for projects dealing with water, sanitation and waste, and there are already many international development actors working in this area, who can access this funding. Therefore Hull are taking a slightly different approach to their project with Freetown and are working with Freetown City Council to support them in their role as a coordinator and commissioner.
Although Hull have recently introduced a new waste strategy of their own, the focus of the project is on good practice relating to procurement, asset management and contract monitoring & performance in the Sierra Leone context rather than looking at the 'nuts and bolts' of introducing a similar waste management strategy for Freetown. By focussing on the elements that underpin good practice, the two partner councils expect that the project will have a longer term impact and will be transferable to other areas of council activity.
Sunderland's partnership with the Mbombela Local Municipality is not solely about sharing experience on economic development and tackling unemployment to build capacity and expertise within the South African local authority, but also builds on a common bond of football. As a candidate host city, Sunderland hopes to learn from Mbombela's experience during the 2010 World Cup should England be successful in its bid for 2018 or 2022.
>>Self assessment
1 Have you considered how international development links could boost your council’s efficiency?
2 Have you carried out an alignment exercise to consider potential matches between your key priorities and international development activities?
3 Are there particular strengths that you have as a council, on efficiency-related matters such as financial governance, procurement and service transformation, that you can share with developing world counterparts?
4 Are there skills improvements that would make you more efficient that could be boosted by engagement in international development activities?