CONDITIONS THAT MAY ENABLE POOR AND PREVIOUSLY MARGINALISED GROUPS TO GAIN FROM DEMOCRATIC DECENTRAL

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CONDITIONS THAT MAY ENABLE POOR AND PREVIOUSLY
MARGINALISED GROUPS TO GAIN FROM DEMOCRATIC
DECENTRALISATION Slide 1

• Where poverty arises mainly from inequality
  between localities or regions and not from
  inequality within them. (The latter is usually
  the main problem.)
• Where only poor people are permitted to
  participate in empowered bodies at lower levels.
• Where the ruling party in the larger political
  system is pro-poor especially if its
  organisation penetrates effectively into
  lower-level arenas.

• Where poor or formerly excluded groups gain
  sufficient seats on decentralised bodies thanks
  either to reservations of seats or to election
  victories to make it necessary for leaders to
  create alliances with some of those
  representatives
• Where elites must compete for the votes of the
  poor.

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CONDITIONS THAT MAY ENABLE POOR AND PREVIOUSLY
MARGINALISED GROUPS TO GAIN FROM DEMOCRATIC
DECENTRALISATION Slide 2

• Where the poor make up the large majority of the
  population.
• Where poor people live in spatially distinct
  pockets and government programmes are targetted
  upon those pockets.

• Where the poor are substantially mobilized and
  well organised.
• Where elite perceptions of poor people
  (especially among elites at lower levels) are
  amenable to poverty reduction.

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CONDITIONS THAT MAY ENABLE POOR AND PREVIOUSLY
MARGINALISED GROUPS TO GAIN FROM DEMOCRATIC
DECENTRALISATION Slide 3

• Where pro-poor coalitions (consisting of both the
  poor and the non-poor) have strength within civil
  society (again, especially at lower levels).
• Where civil society organisations which are
  pro-poor or consist of the poor are brought into
  positions of influence in decentralised bodies.

• Where higher levels of government pursue pro-poor
  programmes in partnership with elected bodies at
  lower levels, and design those programmes in ways
  that minimise the danger of elite capture.
• Where other participatory devices are effectively
  linked to democratic decentralisation village
  mass meetings, social audits, participatory
  budgetting, etc.