AMMAN — The Women Helping Women Network held an online conference on February 20,
discussing the effectiveness of the
Decentralization Law that was passed in
2015 with the aim to devolving government authority to local government
institutions like municipalities and governorate councils.
اضافة اعلان
Two guest speakers, Esraa Mahadin and Thoraya
Al-Kahlidi, discussed the law, and its ramification and effectiveness, since it
came into effect.
Decentralization helps local development by being
more efficient and better serving communities, who find it easier to voice
their thoughts and concerns, they said.
Mahadin, director of
Karak Castle Center, said:
“Many parties were apprehensive about the Decentralization Law (in 2017). This
pushed them to somehow refuse to implement it. In fact, when our center
conducted extensive research on the local administration law, we heard from
governorate council members that no one was cooperating with them because of
that apprehension.”
“Council members did not receive the necessary
training on what to do, no one helped them. Then, the pandemic struck. These
circumstances affected people’s perception and trust in the decentralization
process, and the effectiveness of the law, which led them to not take it seriously,”
Mahadin added.
The revised 2021 law failed to address the main
problems that appeared after the original law of 2015 was issued. The biggest
problem was the overlapping of authority. This, said Mahadin, could have been
solved by extensively training members from both the executive and the
governorate councils “so that each party knows its limits within the law”.
One of the suggestions speakers came up with was to
involve civil society organizations in the municipal council and the provincial
council work, as they are more knowledgeable of societal wants and needs and
could prove to be beneficial.
“There should be a women’s committee in the
provincial council. Just like there is a finance committee and other primary
committees, one should be created for women.” Mahadin went on to say.
“Also, when exercising a democratic role such as the
one that the local administration law calls for, all governorate council
members should be elected, instead of a percentage of them being selected,”
Mahadin added.
Another suggestion was to hold provisional council
sessions public, to enhance community participation and involvement.
Khalidi,
provincial council member from Mafraq, said: “The Decentralization Law was
doomed to fail before it was even implemented. The infrastructure and tools we
needed were not there for us to utilize.”
Reiterating the belief that authorities overlap
Khalidi said: “Mayors did not receive the authority from various ministries
that would allow us to efficiently work and deliver, as we had to personally go
to different ministries and get approvals, and that wasted a lot of time and
effort that would have been better spent working on other important issues.”
The conference focused on the shortcomings of the
local administration law and its implementation, with speakers stressing that
there is need for proper and thorough training of governorate members to
improve their performance and set clear boundaries to prevent overlapping of
authority.
Local elections took place recently, and speakers expressed
hope that this term will yield better results and will help
local councils “step away from centralized procedures”.
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