Popular Participation in Decentralized Governance: With Especial Emphasis on Adi-Haki Local Administration, Mekelle City

Abstract

The study examines the aspects related to the level of popular involvement, mechanisms to improve and barriers in decentralized governance in Adi-Haki local administration in Mekelle City from the point view of citizens, councilors, public officials and civil society organizations. The paper seeks to find out who are the governance actors that participate in different stages of the governance process and the level of their involvement. The research is conducted on a representative samples at the local administration level. It was based on 200 questionnaires filled in and 180 returned by the respondents and interview with councilors, public officials and civil society organizations. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that it was based on triangulation both on the officials and citizens, perception about popular participation in decentralized governance. The research shows that there is low level of popular participation in the decentralized governance process with inadequate space provide to the actors and in sufficient means for popular participation. The research provides with enough evidences to characterize the local administration in Mekelle city as a form of consultation according to the Arnstein’s ladder of popular participation.