Democracy at the Local Level Handbook
In 2001, IDEA published a major handbook Democracy at the Local Level: The International IDEA Handbook on Representation, Participation, Conflict Management and Governance. The handbook is the first comprehensive guide for local authorities, civil society, and the international donor community on the purposes, forms, and methods of local democracy. This comprehensive look at local democracy around the world has been well received in a variety of settings, particularly among its target audience of mayors, local councilors, and associations of municipal authorities in various regions. The handbook has been widely disseminated throughout southern Africa, translated into Bahasa for distribution in Indonesia, a related publication has appeared in the southern Caucasus, and a number of follow-up initiatives have been undertaken to include a concentrated focus on local democracy southern Africa.
As part of its thematic work on Democracy at the Local Level IDEA has developed a number of tools designed to assist practitioners and assistance providers in supporting democratic development at the local level.
The Local Democracy Assessment Methodology
IDEA has developed a Local Democracy Assessment Methodology which is a qualitative evaluation of the state of democracy made by those involved in the policy process directly or those who have insider knowledge of the functioning of institutions at local level settings are engaged in the assessment. They use their understanding and experience to respond to the questions and they bring their subjective (opinion-based) knowledge to bear. This approach to assessment places considerable emphasis on the quality of the evaluation activity rather than specific outcomes such as those that can be measured by quantitative measures and benchmarks. The essential idea is to systematically stimulate thoughtful reflection by insiders and civil society actors. Special importance is attributed to the process of selecting those involved in conducting the assessment. They will not speak on the basis of data provided, but must interpret the situation as they see it and try to agree with their interlocutors in a dialogue.
The characteristics of qualitative evaluation are:
- The focus is placed on action, meaning that those engaged in the evaluation process are motivated by the desire to make decisions for reform and improvement in the structure and functioning of the system of local democracy;
- An “insider’s perspective”, meaning that participants in the assessment team are presumed to have some knowledge about the basic conditions in their local entity and some sense of the historical evolution of current conditions.
- A critical perspective, meaning that the process presumes the existence of a certain level of culture of accepting critical views.
- Participation by those who are being evaluated as partners in the reflective judgments with a view to improvement and empowerment.
Steps to conducting a comprehensive local democracy assessment include:
i) completing the questionnaire, either by individuals or in teams, and comparing the results;
ii) writing an assessment report that synthesizes the findings;
iii) critically reviewing the report and discussing findings on which there is a consensus among the evaluators and identifying points of contention and
iv) comparing the results of the research with other knowledge, and creating a set of “beacon indicators” that articulate strategic objectives for improving local democracy,
To view the Local Democracy Assessment Methodology Click Here.
Training Curriculum on Democracy at the Local Level
To further the capacity building aspect of IDEA’s work on Democracy at the Local Level IDEA has designed some training materials for practitioners. The training curriculum is based on the materials and approaches generated during the project to produce practical tools that can be used by both local democracy practitioners and agencies supporting them. For this purpose two training curriculum modules have been designed to provide well-developed training materials for those directly involved in promoting democracy at the local level. The two modules focus on:
- Conducting Local Democracy Assessments for Enhancing Development
- Community Participation: From Design to Evaluation.
Local Democracy Assessments in East and Southern Africa
In 2004 IDEA’s local democracy assessment instrument was piloted in 4 cities in Africa.
- Gaborone (Botswana)
- Lusaka (Zambia)
- Mwanza (Tanzania)
- Nairobi (Kenya)
The 4 assessments were printed in a report Democracy at the Local Level in East and Southern Africa: Profiles in Governance
For more information on IDEA’s work in Africa click here.
