Khadija Darmame & Eric Ross (Eds.) (2024). Local Governance and Development in Africa and the Middle East. Cham: Springer (Book Series: Local and Urban Governance).
This edited volume surveys how current local governance policies and development strategies across Africa and the Middle east are advancing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Morocco's recent experience with local development strategies serves as starting point for the discussion. Over the past decade, Morocco has undertaken a variety of initiatives aimed at reducing poverty and social inequalities and providing essential services to marginalized communities. These initiatives provide great opportunities to reshape the spatial organization of regions, and to address chronic local issues of infrastructure and investment. Local governance is the most direct way of providing basic services to populations, helping to alleviate socio-spatial inequalities. Also, it is and will continue to be the best way to engage people and local governments in economic, social and human development agendas. However, placing local governance at the heart of development strategies requires going well beyond participatory approaches to policy making. This volume assembles case studies from across the region, allowing for understandings that transcend the usual spatial dichotomies between "North" and "Sub-Saharan" Africa, between Africa and the Middle East, and between the "Anglophone" and "Francophone" spheres.
