What’s stopping us empowering communities?

What’s stopping us empowering communities?

About 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) usually passes through the Strait of Homuz.

Strangle that and it’s enough to mutilate economies across the globe and prompt New Zealand to more seriously think about greater self-sufficiency and autonomy from bigger traditional powers.

That thinking should be filtering down to the village level as well, where communities must surely be taking actions to better empower themselves, not just for the inevitable crisis, such as local and marae responses to recent Cyclone Vaianu, but for more resilient ways of doing things, full stop.

Does that seem like an obvious and highly beneficial thing to do?

Yes of course, but the reality is, we’re structurally and fundamentally disabled from doing much about empowering communities.

Allow me to make some grand generalisations to make the point – there are always exceptions to any rule.

First of all, central and local government, especially in their management functions, administer significant public resources (money and assets). Officials answer to politicians who generally prefer to assert “power” over things, while passing much of the “responsibility” back to officials. Note, for example, the speed with which politicians hang officials out to dry at the first whiff of a stuff-up, especially if the stuff-up happens at the top.

For officials, it means control of risk is likely more important than the actual impacts of spending. In some cases this leads to chronic inertia – the risks are minimal when nothing happens.

However, taxes and rates have to be spent somehow, and risk management means internal controls must be maintained.

Could this be a big reason why central and local government is so expensive?

Of course, some money is handed over to community groups, but often with onerous checks and balances, which again adds a burden for officials and community people – the latter are often just enthusiastic volunteers.

Furthermore, such scarce funds are usually contestable, which means there are always winners and losers, decided by the bureaucracy, meaning community organisations are encouraged to compete with each other, rather than collaborate and share.

The deeper truth is, bureaucracies resist empowered communities not because communities are wrong, but because empowerment disrupts the very logic of bureaucratic governance.

Empowerment says: “People closest to the issue should shape the solutions for themselves.”

Bureaucracy says: “People furthest from the issue should manage the solutions.”

Those two worldviews can coexist, but only if the system is redesigned to value participation, not just blind compliance to bureaucratic rules.

All this begs a big question. If the system works against community empowerment, why don’t communities simply take it into their own hands?

As always, money is usually the key. Taxes and rates come from communities, and central and local governments take their governance roles seriously.

But the fact remains, we would all be much better off if our communities were simply given the wherewithal to sort many issues out for themselves. Take out all that remote control and save megabucks.

That may be a forlorn hope given that many citizens are happy to pay taxes and rates in exchange for someone else calling the shots. Then there are a few community organisations playing the game to get their funding and, in the process, perpetuating a system that’s costly and limiting for everyone.