Contemporary Local Governance and Indigenous Institutions: The Case of the Sidaama Southern Ethiopia
Nowadays, enormous change and improvement are occurring in governance practices throughout the world. Democratic decentralization, in particular, has become a concern in many countries, especially in the developing world countries like Ethiopia. Successive Ethiopian governments since Menelik Ⅱ, have introduced and implemented modern governance system. This happened despite the existence of indigenous institutions which have been playing an indispensable role in guiding the social-political and other life of the society, especially, for rural area communities in filling the gap of the formal state institutions, that are often weak or absent, and its penetration to rural areas has been poor. Thus, given the limitations of modern institutions, relying on traditional institutions could be an attractive option to improve local governance. This is because, when compared with state structure, traditional institutions do not need to build from the start. At local level creating new and efficient state institutions can be difficult, costs and it needs time as well. Accordingly, qualitative research methodology was employed in the study for its appropriateness to investigate indigenous institutions and local governance by drawing practical evidence from Sidaama province and data was collected through the use of key informant interview, focus group discussions, personal observation and secondary source consulting. The study revealed that these indigenous institutions and their governing systems are pivotal to manage the multifaceted affairs starting from day-to-day affairs of the community. In pluri-national polities like Ethiopia, the thick bonds of national identity and solidarity are, neither in no way are affected by preservation and promotion of indigenous ways of knowing as a tool for strengthening local governance nor an oxymoron to the Ethiopian national identity. Thus, indigenous institutions are mechanisms for improving the performance of formal local governance institutions. Finally, the study suggested that local development policies and programs must take into account these indigenous institutions which have a vital role for the upgrading our contemporary local governance endeavors..
Indigenous Institutions of Sidaama Local Governance Sidama (Sidaama) Ethiopia
Tsegaye Tuke Kia
School of Governance and Development Studies, Hawassa University, Hawassa, Ethiopia,P.O.BOX05;Center for West African Studies of University of Electronic Science and Technology of China,Chengdu, P.R.China, 611731
国际会议
加纳
英文
958-970
2017-11-01（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）