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RUFGCIN/CDR USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 NIAMEY 001075 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT: FOR AF/W, BACHMAN; ACCRA FOR AID/WA, SCHULMAN; DEPT: 
PLEASE PASS TO USAID FOR AMARTIN 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/22/2016 
TAGS: PGOV KDEM KCOR EAID NG
SUBJECT: POLITICAL DECENTRALIZATION IN NIGER: (STILL) A 
LONG ROAD AHEAD 
 
REF: 05 NIAMEY 865 
 
Classified By: POLITICAL OFFICER ZACH HARKENRIDER FOR REASON 1.4 (D) 
 
------- 
SUMMARY 
------- 
 
¶1. (C) More than two years have passed since Nigeriens 
elected local councils to govern the country's 265 communes. 
The advent of political decentralization - a subject of 
discussion for most of the nation's first four decades of 
independence - was greeted with excitement by ordinary 
Nigeriens who felt that locally elected governments would 
help them to reach their development goals in areas such as 
education, health, and hydrology more effectively and 
democratically than had the old system of rule by centrally 
appointed civil servants and traditional chiefs (reftel). 
Since the elections, international donors, including the USG, 
have matched their support for the concept of local democracy 
with resource commitments aimed at local communities' 
training 
and development needs. However, two years away from the next 
set of commune elections, (scheduled for the summer of 2008) 
a 
donor-funded stock-taking has revealed just how far Niger 
still 
is from realizing the promise of this important 
democratization 
initiative. Moreover, the report suggests that the largest 
problem facing the country's local democratic governments is 
the Government of Niger's (GON) tepid enthusiasm for a 
process 
to which it was never sufficiently committed. END SUMMARY. 
 
--------------------------------------------- -------- 
THE EU'S "COMPTE RENDU" - NOT ENOUGH MONEY, 
COORDINATION, OR ATTENTION 
--------------------------------------------- -------- 
 
¶2. (U) On September 20, the European Union released a 
"provisional 
report on the transfer of authority to commune governments." 
This 
scathing review offered few positive points, and stressed the 
gap 
between rhetorical and legal commitments to decentralization 
with 
practice on the ground. Commune governments, it argued, still 
lacked meaningful sources of revenue; sufficient staff and 
training; equipment and infrastructure; and, the authority to 
fulfill the responsibilities the law bestowed upon them. Much 
of 
the problem derives from the fact that many decentralization 
laws 
(passed in stages, mostly between 1998 and 2003) require 
administrative decrees to clarify and enable implementation. 
Due 
to bureaucratic confusion, the executive branch of the GON 
has yet 
to draft many of these decrees; others are still pending 
before the 
Council of Ministers. 
 
¶3. (U) The case of infrastructure and equipment transfer from 
the 
central administration to the communes is illustrative. A 
decree 
envisioned by the law has been drafted, but not forwarded to 
the 
Council of Ministers. Moreover, an inventory of the goods to 
be 
transferred, their quantities and condition, has yet to be 
conducted. Revenue streams are similarly problematic. 
Communes 
are supposed to derive funds from central government revenue 
sharing and their own local fees, fines, and taxes on things 
like 
markets, licenses, property, and construction. However, the 
communes 
have yet to truly benefit from either source of revenue. 
While the 
laws authorizing revenue sharing have been passed, the 
decrees 
detailing its functioning have not been developed. The EU 
study 
stated that no one in the process knew when or if those 
 
NIAMEY 00001075  002 OF 004 
 
 
decrees 
would be promulgated. 
 
¶4. (U) Decentralization law lists eleven separate taxes that 
are 
supposed to accrue to the communes. Absent sufficient 
training and 
staff (in particular tax collectors and recorders), communes 
are 
still relying on the GON to collect most taxes for them - and 
the 
GON is keeping 70-80% or more of the revenues. Only in cases 
where 
the communes themselves are in a position to collect taxes 
directly 
(and examples are limited to the head tax and local license 
fees) 
do they receive most of the revenue. 
 
¶5. (U) The EU report listed more general concerns as well: 
Decentralization laws are not clear, and are rife with 
lacunae; all 
communes need more training on everything, but not all have 
international partners to assist them. NOTE: Approximately 70 
of 
Niger's 265 communes have received no donor support, while 
all 
others have received either steady or episodic assistance. 
END 
NOTE Other problems abound. Some urban communes are expected 
to fund 
certain costs of the central government's Governors and 
Prefects based 
within their jurisdictions, even though these officials are 
not, in 
point of law, their responsibility. At the same time, the GON 
- which 
is supposed to fund the salaries of civil servants assigned 
to the 
communes while local governments pick up certain  other 
expenses - 
is not maintaining its side of the financial bargain. 
Finally, the 
report noted that too many actors in the process still view 
the 
communes as an inconvenience or simply as implementers of 
decisions 
made at a higher level, rather than as real representative 
actors in 
their own right. The Governors, Prefects, Sub-Prefects, 
relevant 
Ministries, and traditional chiefs have yet to fully 
understand their 
relationships to the commune governments and vice versa, even 
though 
this is one of the points that most donor supported trainings 
have 
attempted to elucidate. 
 
¶6.  (C) COMMENT: In general, the EU report painted a picture 
of 
confusion and a near total lack of coordination within the 
GON. 
Communes are empowered on paper, but lack the resources 
necessary to 
take charge of their responsibilities. The EU report 
concluded with 
an "urgent plan" to revive the process. The transfer of 
meaningful 
resources, the revision of texts, and the promulgation of 
necessary 
decrees were all recommended as short term solutions, and 
these do 
suggest a practical way forward. If donors give the GON a 
solid push, 
it could accomplish all of these items within the reasonable 
six-month 
timeline outlined by the EU team. However, while the EU 
report's 
depressing conclusions merited hearing, the GON did a poor 
job of 
listening. END COMMENT 
 
--------------------------------------------- ----------- 
GON REACTION ILLUMINATES CAUSES OF BUREAUCRATIC CONFUSION 
--------------------------------------------- ----------- 
 
 
NIAMEY 00001075  003 OF 004 
 
 
¶7. (C) During the EU presentation, the dais was occupied by 
the 
highest-level GON official in the room - the Acting High 
Commissioner 
for the Modernization of the State (HCMS). "Acting" for over 
a year, 
the HCMS is head of a small office with limited resources. 
Its most 
qualified personnel were transferred to other administrative 
functions 
in the summer of 2005, and its name changed from High 
Commission for 
Decentralization and Modernization of the State. At the same 
time, 
other GON organs began to lay claim to its functions. The 
Ministry 
of the Interior and Decentralization and the newly created 
High 
Council for Territorial Collectivities are both charged with 
administering the decentralization process, while a special 
counselor 
in the Prime Minister's Office has a planning and 
conceptualiziation 
role. Though their duties are somewhat distinct, they 
collectively lay 
claim to all of the former bureaucratic territory of the 
HCMS. 
Officials of both organizations have spoken dismissively of 
the HCMS, 
and stressed their own leadership roles in the process in 
meetings 
with Emboffs. This confusion and the HCMS's weakened role 
suggest that 
the GON is both unclear as to where lines of authority on 
decentralization are drawn, and unwilling to consistently 
commit 
high-level attention to the issue. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ----------- 
COMMENT: WHY DECENTRALIZATION STILL MERITS DONOR SUPPORT 
--------------------------------------------- ----------- 
 
¶8. (C) Very little of the foregoing was new to Poloff. The 
fact that 
we have heard all of this before speaks to the intractability 
of 
these problems in the Nigerien context, but also to the GON's 
half-hearted implementation of a regieme whose strongest 
supporters 
have always been "outsiders," - international donors seeking 
greater 
accountability, participation, and transparency; Tuareg and 
Toubou 
rebels and other ethnic minorities seeking greater political 
control 
over their regions; good governance advocates; and, ordinary 
Nigeriens at the village level. Traditional elites ranging 
from the 
chieftaincy to the secular administrative authorities have 
never been 
fully "sold" on the process. Absent a genuine commitment on 
the part 
of the GON to making local governments work for their people, 
Niger 
may take many more years to pass its latest democratization 
test. It 
is important, however, that it do so. In spite of the dismal 
progress 
made so far, decentralization merits our continued support. 
Post 
believes that supporting this process should be central to 
any 
country assistance strategy. Post believes that the commune - 
exempt 
from Nethercutt Amendment restrictions on assistance and more 
reliable 
than the central government in matter of probity and 
transparency - 
should become our key development focal point and partner. 
 
¶9. (C) Functional local governments where citizens - 
particularly 
minorities with histories of alienation from the state like 
the Tuaregs 
and Toubous - have a say in how their communities are taxed, 
policed, 
developed, and governed are still viewed as more legitimate 
 
NIAMEY 00001075  004 OF 004 
 
 
and 
desireable by ordinary Nigeriens than the old system of 
top-down 
administration. If the GON's writ is to extend into the 
fragile 
post-conflict zones of the north and east, it will be via 
participatory 
institutions like commune governments and rural radio 
networks, that 
bring people and their government closer together. Moreover, 
given the 
sense of ownership that attaches to local resources when they 
are 
managed by local people, decentralization helps to minimize 
corruption. 
The donor community got this much right when it backed 
decentralization 
at the start of this decade. The EU study did not focus on 
donors' 
roles. However, reading between the lines suggests that 
Niger's 
international partners must do a better job of coordinating 
their 
actions, encouraging the GON to move the process forward, and 
providing 
resources that directly meet the challanges faced by the 
communes with 
regard to revenue and capacity. 
 
¶10. (C) The USG's latest effort, via Trans Sahara Counter 
Terrorism 
Partnership (TSCTP) development funds, suggests the means by 
which 
this should be done. While European donors have shifted their 
focus 
toward central government capacity building since 2004-5 - 
and may 
thereby succeed in sorting out some of the incoherence that 
exists 
at that level - our $1.1 million, two-year effort builds on 
our 
existing commitment to commune level intervention. It is 
designed 
to give commune governments a shot in the arm via training 
and 
microcredit loans that will catalysze revenue generating 
economic 
activities at the local level. With implementing partner 
Mercy Corps, 
we are focusing on some of the communes that need the most 
help - 
rural, nomadic communities in the ex-rebel belt of the Air 
and 
Aizawak. Getting local democracy right in these regions is 
about 
more than ensuring good governance in Niger, it is about 
stabilizing 
the country's most sensitive border zones. The stakes in that 
game 
are high enough to justify the sort of patient, long-term 
commitment 
to trial and error that can alone yield success in the face 
of the 
obstacles cited by the EU's report. END COMMENT 
ALLEN