Local Actors and Service Delivery in Fragile Situations

Current development programs that are designed to enhance service delivery have tended to follow two strategies in fragile situations. One the one hand, they have channeled resources through community-based organizations, because centrally governed institutions have been deemed too weak to serve this function. On the other hand, they have pursued traditional state-building in the belief that work on centrally governed institutions will eventually trickle down to the local level as the delivery of better public services. However, as this report argues, if the impact of programming is to be enhanced, policy-makers and practitioners must expand their understanding of whom and what constitutes the state. And they must drop the notion of a “non-state”, which as a concept is empirically inaccurate, has little explanatory value, and is defined by negation.

The report demonstrates conceptually and empirically why a systemic understanding of ‘the state’ and governance are necessary as programs that aim to strengthen service delivery in fragile situations are being designed. The report does this on the basis of three case studies, which explore varying levels of external support to: 1. Community policing in Sierra Leone; 2. Primary healthcare provided by village doctors in Bangladesh; and 3. Primary education provided by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), traditional voluntary organizations and madrasas – religious seminaries – in Pakistan.

Following from this, five recommendations are made:

1. Local actors must be supported to build relationships with centrally governed institutions, because such relationships are the foundation of long-term sustainability and accountability.
2. In designing programs, donors must accept that it takes time to build linkages between centrally governed institutions and local actors.
3. Support must be technically motivated, even if it intends to cause social transformation, which as a rule has political implications.
4. Program success is based on building up activities around already existing local structures of authority.
5. Private interests should be accepted as part and parcel of what engaging and supporting the establishment of local institutions entails.