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Local
Governance in Small States
BACKGROUND
The Unit for the Promotion of Democracy of the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States (UPD/OAS) and the United Nations Development Programme serving Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean have been responding to requests from Caribbean states for support in the process of examining and undertaking democratic promotion and consolidation.
A regional conference on Constitutional Reform in the Caribbean coordinated by UPD/OAS and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in collaboration with the University of the West Indies was held in January 2002 in Barbados. Conference recommendations noted that local government; decentralization; citizen input; and community action were key facets of governance in the Caribbean region. Concerns centered on the scope, content, objectives and institutional arrangements for decentralization and local governance, especially in the context of the limited resources and specific needs of the region's smallest states. |
