Christopher Gore

Decentralization is Dead, Long Live Decentralization! Capital City Reform and Political Rights in Kampala, Uganda

African cities are currently experiencing some of the highest population growth rates in the world. Accompanying this growth is constant and continuing pressure on national and local governments to develop political and institutional structures that respond to the multiple demands this demographic change provokes in relation to service delivery, economic development and social wellbeing. In response to these challenges, national governments are reviewing the political and administrative structures of their capital cities, sometimes recentralizing authority. This article examines the reforms to Kampala, capital city of Uganda. The article explains how the national government gradually created the legal conditions necessary to take over the capital city directly, and the political rhetoric and conflict that ensued. We argue that while Kampala had deep internal problems and fared poorly in service delivery, matters were exacerbated by the national governments historical indifference to the city. Moreover, past service delivery failures offered an easy rationale for recentralizing authority. We demonstrate that this recentralization was a well-planned effort by the central government to regain political control of the capital city. This article illustrates how the national governments recentralization of authority in Kampala is a significant departure from its longstanding policy of democratic decentralization.

Strengthening capacity for sustainable livelihoods and food security through urban agriculture among HIV and AIDS affected households in Nakuru, Kenya

The promotion and support of urban agriculture (UA) has the potential to contribute to efforts to address pressing challenges of poverty, under nutrition and sustainability among vulnerable populations in the growing cities of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This may be especially relevant for HIV/AIDS-affected individuals in SSA whose agricultural livelihoods are severely disrupted by the devastating effects of the disease on physical productivity and nutritional well-being. This paper outlines the process involved in the conception, design and implementation of a project to strengthen technical, environmental, financial and social capacity for UA among HIV-affected households in Nakuru, Kenya. Key lessons learned are also discussed. The first has been the value of multi-stakeholder partnerships, representing a broad range of relevant experience, knowledge and perspectives in order to address the complex set of issues facing agriculture for social purposes in urban settings. A second is the key role of self-help group organizations, and the securing of institutional commitments to support farming by vulnerable persons affected by HIV-AIDS is also apparent. Finally, the usefulness of evaluative tools using mixed methods to monitor progress towards goals and identify supports and barriers to success are highlighted.

Municipal climate reporting: : gaps in monitoring and implications for governance and action

For over two decades, municipal climate progress has been inventoried and analysed using a common reporting framework. While useful for highlighting the extent of municipal engagement in greenhouse gas mitigation efforts, we know little about how comprehensive this reporting framework is. Are municipal governments engaging in mitigation activities outside this framework? And what about climate adaptation activity for which no long-standing milestone reporting framework has existed? Based on results from a national survey of municipal governments in Canada, the paper reveals that municipal governments are engaged in many climate activities and processes that common inventories and reporting systems do not capture. The paper argues that these ‘in between activities’ – the not-yet counted climate actions that take place between and outside of milestone initiation and completion – have practical importance for future climate action and theoretical importance by complementing growing evidence about the nature of municipal climate activities and climate governance.

INFRASTRUCTURE AND METROPOLITAN REORGANIZATION: AN EXPLORATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP IN AFRICA AND INDIA

ABSTRACT: Despite decades of effort, deficiencies in access and quality of infrastructure persist in cities of the developing world. One common response to the infrastructure problem is to reorganize the structure of metropolitan areas in the hopes that infrastructure provision, management, and quality will improve. What is not clear globally, however, is how the reorganization of metropolitan areas comes to be, and how infrastructure deficiencies function as a rationale for reform in conjunction with other dominant reasons or drivers of metropolitan reorganization. Building on the demand for increased cross-regional comparison in urban studies generally, this article explores and compares the relationship between infrastructure quality and political and social pressures in four cities—two in India and two in East Africa. The comparison is intended to be exploratory; it shows how city and national government efforts to improve infrastructure quality are shaped by political and social pressures. The results provide a foundation for future cross-regional comparison and theory building.

Translating strong principles into effective practice: environmental assessment in Ontario, Canada

This paper examines two fundamental and inter-related tensions relating to environmental assessment between the desire to be proactive, promoting sustainable development and the more traditional practice of preventing harm, as well as the need to balance a predictable, expeditious and efficient process with transparency and inclusive deliberation. Proposed reforms to the environmental assessment process in Ontario, Canada, are examined as a case in point, showing how the recommendations in Ontario are consistent with international trends. In particular, over-arching principles need to be embedded in more precise sector-specific policies to enable environmental assessment processes to meet these competing goals.

Public and Local Government Leader Opinions on Environmental Federalism Comparing Issues and National Contexts

How should regulatory authority over environmental policy issues be allocated? While there has been previous work on public preferences regarding environmental federalism, less attention has been paid to the opinions of local government officials, who are often on the front lines testing the limits (or not) of their authority. Using survey data of public and local official opinion about environmental federalism, this article finds that local government officials often see a significantly different role for national, subnational, and local government than their constituents, even after accounting for demographic differences between the groups. This article draws on data from two subnational jurisdictions in different countries (Michigan, United States and Ontario, Canada) and finds that the differences between the general public and local officials are durable even with a change in national context.