The seismic shift that is underway in the global development funding landscape should be a wake-up call to leaders in the Global North and South alike. As support from the international community is waning or changing, sustainable development will increasingly have to be achieved by Global South countries themselves and potentially other partners, redoubling their efforts to improve the responsiveness, results-orientation, and efficiency of the public sector.
The changing global context has obvious and important implications for those who study, work on, and advocate for inclusive and efficient decentralization, localization, and multilevel governance. Inclusive and efficient multilevel governance systems can—and should—be leveraged to contribute to global stability, economic prosperity, sustainable development, and efficient public service delivery in countries around the world.
Within this context, the Local Public Sector Alliance (LPSA), together with the Forum of Federations, NYU’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, the Center on International Cooperation (CIC) at New York University (NYU), and a number of other partners, will be convening a global roundtable.
The global roundtable is scheduled to take place on February 26-27, 2026, at New York University’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service in New York City.
While participation in the roundtable will be invitation-only, selected panel sessions of the roundtable may be structured in a hybrid format to permit public participation online.
The evolving role of the decentralization and multilevel governance community of practice
The need for global development actors to renew their focus on (local) public sector effectiveness comes after close to 25 years of declining attention to decentralization and local public sector governance. Given the expectation of a further reduction in official development assistance, the global Community of Practice that is focused on decentralization, localization and multilevel governance will be pushed to “do even more with less” and to innovate.
With the view that “public finance is development finance”, a larger share of development assistance will have to be set aside for public sector reforms that allow countries to be self-reliant, not only by strengthening domestic revenue mobilization, but equally importantly, making sure that public sector resources reach the grassroots with inclusive and efficient public services. The role of multilevel governance systems and the local public sector in this process cannot be ignored, especially in places where continued urbanization causes decentralization to emerge as an obvious and compelling strategy to boost public sector responsiveness and performance.
Regardless of the structure of a country’s public sector, ensuring responsive public services will typically require dedicating a larger share of public resources to frontline services; public sector resources will need to be allocated efficiently, equitably, and transparently across the national territory; and public sector resources will need to be efficiently transformed from public sector inputs (e.g., public finances and human resources) into public sector outcomes (e.g., public services and infrastructure) at the local level.
In practice, however, public sector resources flow to where they are directed by national and local decision-makers. As such, champions of inclusive multilevel governance and efficient public sector management will likely need to influence public decision-makers to allocate resources in ways that go against the political economy forces that—in many countries—have created challenges for effective local government finance, governance and performance.
Public sector responsiveness and efficiency will improve—and the value-for-money received by citizens will increase—when governments at all levels are more transparent, accountable and results-oriented, and when PFM systems track and improve the decentralized, spatial allocation of public resources. Public service delivery outcomes are hindered when resources get stuck at central government level (or on their way down the chain), rather than being spent and managed as part of an effective and transparent multilevel governance system.
The evolving view of development—and the role played by effective and responsive multilevel governance systems—also requires sectoral interventions. Recent events have highlighted the unsustainability of externally-funded, stove-piped sectoral interventions that fail to address the underlying capacity and governance issues that cause public sector institutions and frontline service providers to be unresponsive and ineffective. If the global development community is serious about a path to self-reliance for Global South countries, the balance in global development efforts between “laying pipes” and “fixing the country (multilevel governance) systems that lay the pipes” needs to shift towards greater emphasis on developing, empowering and capacitating the relevant systems.
Finally, the conversation on the future role of multilevel governance system is important for colleagues in adjacent practice communities working on issues related to conflict and fragility, inclusive economic growth, cities, climate change, gender equity, and other global challenges. Each of these policy challenges require collective action across different government levels, whereas their respective practice communities may not yet realize that ineffective multilevel governance forms a binding constraint to achieving their ambitions in a sustainable manner.
Roundtable objectives
The collective vision of the roundtable organizers is a world where people are informed and empowered; governments are open and responsive; and the public good is enhanced through civic engagement and collective action. Achieving this vision requires countries to pursue inclusive, efficient, and responsive multilevel governance systems.
Implementing the necessary reforms to achieve inclusive and responsive multilevel governance systems requires building country-level consensus and political will that results in public sector reforms (including in governance, administrative, fiscal, and sectoral systems), informed by evidence and an in-depth understanding of decentralization and localization as complex, cross-cutting and multistakeholder reforms. Global advocates of inclusive governance and sustainable development have an important role to play in knowledge development; knowledge sharing; and convening, outreach, and field-building. The issue of how to strategically sequence and implement reforms also requires dedicated attention.
The focus of the roundtable is not to reflect on the importance of different thematic or technical issues—there are other venues to dive deeper into specific topics. Instead, the focus would be on identifying what we (think we) know, where we need to be more self-critical or work harder to better understand how multilevel governance can be leveraged in the real-world (or not), what to prioritize, and how to overcome the increasingly restrictive operating environment being faced by global champions, development actors, and other stakeholders that recognize the importance of multilevel governance and the local public sector in achieving inclusive governance and sustainable development.
Hosting, funding, and participation
The roundtable will be co-hosted by the Local Public Sector Alliance (LPSA), the Forum of Federations, NYU’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and the Center on International Cooperation (CIC) at New York University (NYU). Additional co-conveners and partners include the Commonwealth Local Government Forum, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the World Bank.
An initial estimate is that 40-50 participants might take part in the roundtable. In-person attendance will be invitation-only. In principle, all co-conveners, partner organizations, and participants will bear the cost of their own attendance. Travel support for a limited number of unaffiliated participants may be provided by LPSA or other partners.
Please monitor LPSA’s Event Calendar for future announcements regarding this event. Please contact Ms. Mirna Dave (mirna@decentralization.net) for questions or further information.
