The Executive Committee of Liberal International meeting in Cape Town deplores the way that power has been shifted in many countries away from local communities and towards ever more centralised forms of government, public services and enterprise.
The Committee in particular regrets that these centralising trends in government have contributed to the frustration of community voluntary activity, the erosion of local economies and the weakening of local life and institutions more broadly. It is a fundamental Liberal principle that power should be spread as widely as possible.
The Executive Committee calls on Governments around the World to be ambitious and take opportunities to revitalize neighbourhoods, by:
- Empowering local democracy – Since local people are the experts in their own neighbourhoods and their own needs, the role of existing local authorities needs to be strengthened, and bodies representing smaller communities, local civil society and the community voluntary sector need to be given much greater support.
- Freeing up local administration – Front line staff and public service professionals must be freed from detailed central control so that they can match services to local needs. The administration of health, the police and where appropriate the justice system must be made more responsive and accountable to the communities they serve, with administrative boundaries aligned to those of local authorities so as to promote effective coordination and integration of local services.
- Encouraging local economics and enterprise – Localism depends also on a diverse local economy, less dependent on the direction and support of the centre, on the branches of national and multinational companies or on central finance. In the long run, successful local economies need a bedrock of local innovation, local enterprise, local energy, and a lending network capable of providing the necessary capital for local business, social enterprise and other endeavour.
- Moving towards financial autonomy for local government – Central government control of local government finance has been the mechanism through which detailed central management of local government has been imposed. The Executive recommends a long-term target of achieving 75% of local government spending being raised locally, wherever possible, with provision for equalization.
The Executive calls for a transparent annual process of negotiation between representatives of local authorities and central governments on the allocation of central funding to local government, and for the governments to adopt as a priority the transfer of other revenue streams to local authority control.
