How does Decentralization Affect the Performance of Municipalities in Urban Environmental Management in the Philippines?

Abstract

This study explored the factors that affect the environmental management performance of municipalities in the Philippines, which have expanded their environmental policy authority through decentralization. Individual case studies have shown that in order for a municipality that has expanded its authority over environmental policy in the process of decentralization to effectively implement this policy, it is important that the mayor take political initiative to overcome financial and technical constraints and encourage the effective participation of stakeholders. In response to these arguments, this study examines each of the following four questions – whose policy input improves local government performance, whether local government performance improves when mayors have frequent contact with stakeholders, whether the frequent contact with external political actors affect the performance of local governments, and whose financial support increases local government performance – using statistical analysis on the results of a large-scale local government survey in the Philippines. It was revealed that financial inputs from the private sector and a frequent contact with the neighboring local governments have a positive correlation with high environmental management performance, while close relationships with various stakeholders and strong financial support from the central government departments have a negative correlation, and the mayor's policy initiative has no effect.