Nobel laureate calls for direct funding for local governments

At today’s opening plenary of the UCLG World Summit of Local and Regional Leaders, Roger Myerson, Nobel prize winning Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, made an appeal to international donors to include local governments in their funding efforts.

Speaking in Rabat, Morocco, host city for the Fourth UCLG World Congress, Myerson said: “International donors of economic assistance funds should help to promote responsible local government by including local governments as partners. Donors should insist that local governments should be able to apply directly for a portion of development assistance funds.”

He praised the work of UCLG through its GOLD programme to emphasise the important role for local governments in a decentralised fiscal structure and said UCLG has an important role to play as the international advocate of democratic local government. It is important for citizens that there is empowered local leadership as local democracy is vital for national democratic development.

According to Myerson, Egypt should have started its transition to democracy with local elections because with presidential elections only one candidate can win the prize of centralised national power. “It is unfortunate that UCLG’s message about the wider importance of local democracy was not more widely heard among the voices of the Arab spring a few years ago,” said Myerson.

With regard to the role of mayors in a global government, Myerson said it was important to have the different levels of government—national, state and local—acting with accountability at each level and that a world government of mayors did not match this thesis. “A dictatorship of mayors is not what I want to advocate,” said Myerson. But local government experience could give officials the experience to be strong in other levels of government.

“When governors and mayors have real autonomous responsibility, it not only serves communities better but they become strong candidates for high office and enrich the politics of their nation by giving the people of their country proven candidates who they can trust,” said Myerson. “The possibility of a local channel makes national politics more competitive and makes all levels of government better.”

Other speakers emphasised that local governments had a particularly important role in empowering women, youth and the disadvantaged of society.

“Local government is the engine of service delivery and women’s realities are linked to that,” said Lakshmi Puri, Deputy Executive Director of UN Women. “Where there are problems of water, food or sanitation, they come to the attention of local governments. So women and girls must engage in local government and men, who are part of local governance, must be gender responsive.”

Xavier Trias, Mayor of Barcelona, said that although his city had been successful in attracting tourism and investment, local governments had to be responsive to those, particularly from other cultures, who had come to the city to integrate with society. “There are men and women, who have been coming to the city for 15 years, looking for work and ending up in poverty and it is the obligation of the mayor to find an answer to this.”