| dc.description.abstract | Decentralization in Namibia is seen as a vehicle for sustainable
development in general. The strategic reason directing the decision to
embark on decentralization by the Namibian government was to ensure
that services reach the poor communities. Government therefore
embarked on decentralization and put in place policies that would
govern it. The study investigated the extent to which decentralization has
performed in taking government services closer to the people.
The implementation process of any program has to do with policies, the
human and material resources to achieve the targeted goals. While
central government considers decentralization to be essential, the
Namibian government went on to study and mission finding from other
countries in order to align itself with the constraints, challenges and
benefits of decentralization before implementing it. From what the study
revealed, the decentralization performance has been too slow and the
results achieved so far, are disappointing. The study found that lack of
competent human resources, lack of material resources, lack of funds, the
HIV and AIDS pandemic, which is widespread in the region, corruption,
mismanagement of scarce resources, and illiteracy levels of the
communities to be limiting to an effective decentralization process.
Challenges influencing the implementation of decentralization are
among others, poverty, unemployment, informal settlements that
accommodate the poor who overload the local authorities with problems
such as crime, juvenile delinquency, bad debts in terms of paying for
services.
Service delivery is also affected by the vastness of the region, some
inaccessible areas, lack of health facilities such as hospitals, clinics, mobile
clinics, ambulances and outreach programs. Educational facilities such
as lack of enough schools, libraries, recreational centers and classroom
have implications on the services rendered.
The study also found critical issues like political will from politicians to
decentralize services to local government levels to be lacking. Political
interference of central government into local levels of government is
rampant and thus impeding progress in the decentralization process as a
whole.
Decentralization is an imported system of government and to be able to
achieve its intentions, Government has to follow the trends within which it
identifies itself. These trends inter alia include, putting sound policies in
place, implement those policies, monitoring and evaluation of such
policies, provision of funds to carry out services, appointment of proper
personnel to govern local levels of government, measuring the
performance and progress of decentralization.
In an effort to understand those trends within decentralization is to be
implemented, and using data sources, which include personal interviews,
primary and secondary sources, the researcher describes and analyses
those data sources to make conclusions on the scale the decentralization
and service delivery are performing.
The researcher does not simply decry the non-performance of
decentralization, but also lays down what could be done to make a
difference and ultimately achieving best results of decentralization.
Areas for further research are provided in which more could be
investigated and with the results found, new dimensions in the
decentralization process as a system of government could be useful to
the country in its endeavors to develop the country using decentralization
as a vehicle to realizing the dream of effective and efficient service
delivery. | en_US |
