Chapter 5 Urban partnerships to manage mobility
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more democratically structured local-government system at the encouragement of the World Bank, the main agency involved in urban assistance (ibid). The new constitution of Kenya, for example, gives more power to municipal authorities to manage affairs at the local level, but large urban populations of displaced and irregular migrants are testing capacities on the ground (Haysom, 2013). African cities are seeking solutions cooperatively with civil society actors and others. For example, in South Africa, the privatization of many public services has resulted in disadvantaged migrants being excluded from these services (EPF and CIRD, 2013). Civil society groups and small business networks, however, deliver services through informal systems albeit more precariously than the formal public services (Clunan and Trinkunas, 2010). In the context of financial austerity after the world economic crisis in 2008, many local governments, even in high-income countries, have had to cut down on municipal budgets, including those for migrant inclusion. This has led to, not only the devolution of inclusion responsibilities to migrants, neighbourhood-based communities and civil society groups, but also the privatization of social services as well as increased support for public-private partnerships for social welfare. More research is needed on the models of central–local cooperation that work best for both migration and urban governance, in particular shared financial and budgetary management across different political and fiscal systems. One innovative approach to financing municipal inclusion policies is participatory budgeting. It is widely practiced by over 1,700 local governments in more than 40 countries, especially among low-income countries where municipal budgets remain low despite decentralization. See text box 30 for an example from Brazil (Cabannes, 2014). Participatory budgeting usually has access to only a small proportion of municipal budgets, and often less than ten per cent. However, it can be used for optimizing scarce municipal resources to provide basic services that correspond to urban dwellers’ expectations and priorities. Its cost-efficiency is also due to lower maintenance costs arising from community oversight. Besides improving basic services, engaging urban dwellers in participatory budgeting can help create new spaces of dialogue between local authorities and urban dwellers, thus establishing a joint decision-making process (ibid.). However, there are limitations to participatory approaches. Migrants, particularly irregular migrants, are among the most vulnerable and are often outside participatory discussions. Temporary or circular migrants might also not stay long enough in one place to learn about or get engaged in participatory forums (Blaser and Landau, 2014).