Institutions and local government accountability in Uganda: a case study of Ntungamo district

Abstract

After decades of seeking answers, without much success, to the development challenges facing third world countries, agencies such as the IMF and World Bank have turned increasingly in recent years to issues governance and accountability. In Africa especially, the failure of most development strategies has been attributed to governance issues such as democratic deficits, corruption and lack of political accountability among others. Uganda like several other African countries has been criticised for corruption - a sign that the country has a problem with the functioning of accountability and governance in general. In an attempt to find out whether the local government institutional mechanisms in Uganda embody possible explanations for weaknesses in political accountability, this study hypothesizes that institutional arrangements impact on downward accountability. While concentrating on the anatomy of institutions and the dimensions of accountability to which they relate, as well as on how the formal and informal institutions relate to each other, the study gives an insight into how institutions impact on downward answerability and enforceability at the local level in Uganda. Based on a thorough consideration of both the theoretical and empirical underpinnings of the concept of accountability, the study develops relevance criteria upon which an assessment of both formal and informal institutions' relevance for each of the dimensions of accountability is based. In both cases, formal institutions are found to be more relevant for accountability than informal ones. Critical issues about the capabilities of informal institutions are however raised, culminating in a discussion on the relationship between formal and informal institutions in the study area. While also considering other variables that interact with institutions in affecting accountability, the study calls for a re examination in the concepts under investigation namely 'institutions' and 'accountability'. The study concludes that problems of accountability can be accounted for by weaknesses in institutional design, conceptual weaknesses in the definition of accountability, as well as contextual factors such as resource constraints. In the light of this recognition, the study offers theoretical as well as policy level recommendations.