What is local governance?

LOCAL governance is about managing public affairs at the community level.

- By Raj Gonsalkorale

It involves Local Government, citizens, and organisations in making and implementing decisions for services like roads, sanitation, schools, and parks. It aims to be responsive, efficient, and representative of local needs through participatory processes like budgeting, planning, and service delivery.It decentralises power, bringing Government closer to people, fostering democracy, and tackling local development issues.

The question is whether local communities participate or have a say in any of the above activities in Sri Lanka. Overall, it appears that elections to Local Government authorities have become a referendum on the National Government and a hot bed for national political battles thereafter.

While there may be some local bodies that are engaged in local governance involving local communities, broadly speaking, it appears that there is hardly any engagement with local communities to discuss, identify, agree on local priorities and monitor progress of such agreed priorities. There are no avenues or arrangements for local communities to meet councillors who they have elected and who supposedly represent them.

From all accounts, electing Local Councils at a huge cost to the taxpayers in the country appears to have been an absolute waste of money. If the elections were about fostering and furthering democracy, and about discussions on local issues, it has been a farce as far as the local communities are concerned as the focus has been about national partisan politics, and nothing to do with local issues.

The ideals of democracy