In Senegal, “territorial sovereignty” is considered as the key for African future

Last 4th of November, in the opening of the Sixth International Forum on Participative Democracy in Africa (FIDEPA06), held in Dakar, the main responsibles of the African territory agreed that decentralisation and participative democracy are the best answer to political, economic and social challenges in the continent. 

The forum, organised by the Local Elected Association Union (UAEL) of Senegal – ORU Fogar Member –, gathered representatives of more than thirty African countries, international organisations and local and regional government webs. 

The UAEL President, Mamadou Oury Diallo, supported the strengthening of the democratic and territorial sovereignty, underlining that “participation can only be articulated through territorial collectivities, which are the ones who live the population’s daily life". 

Diallo defended the necessity of entrusting finances to local and regional authorities, stating that “they are the ones who can hold responsibility before citizens, because they are the closest to the people”. He also thanked the Government of Senegal for accompanying and for its commitment to administrative reform, which intends to strengthen the action of local and departmental entities. 

The Minister of Urban Planning, Territorial Communities, and Land Management, Moussa Balla Fofana, emphasized in his address that decentralization is strategic for Senegal.In a highly symbolic message, he affirmed that Africa “must not resign itself to fate,” and that “Africa is a land of future and hope: human history began here, and here it will have a great future, not only for Africans, but for the entire world.”

ORU Fogar Secretary General, Carles Llorens, thanked the optimism shown by the senegalese authorities both in relation to the ongoing political and administrative reform, and towards African future. He especially appreciated the coincidence between President Diallo’s claim towards financial responsibility of territorial governments and Minister Fofana’s affirmation on the strategic character of decentralisation. 

Llorens explained diverse international experiences of regional participative democracy, underlining that “the best participative democracy is the one that gives competences, power and budget to regional governments, the true governments of human dimension, of proximity, 0km, the ones that - like it has been said - deal with the population’s daily life”. 

He also remembered the report presented by ORU Fogar in the International Summit on  Development Finance (FfD4), held in July in Seville, that establishes a ranking of public decentralised spending. “The most steady Participative democracies are those who trust resources to territories”. In Germany, the Länder manage 31% of public spending. In China, the Chinese Communist Party can be very centralised, but provinces manage close to 24% of public spending. However, in France, they account for 10%. In Senegal, Mali or Ivory Coast, territorial governments have less than 5%. They are paradoxical situations like those of Ecuador, where the Constitution establishes the participative discussion of provincial budgets, but prefectures receive less than 5% of national resources and, usually, the government pays them irregularly”, he reminded. 

Llorens concluded by highlighting the message of trust in Africa transmitted by the Minister Fofana, and he reiterated ORU Fogar’s support for decentralisation processes and territorial democracy in the continent.