Intergovernmental relations: Assessing the Functioning of the Cluster System of
Date
2011-10-14
Authors
Nkasawe, Monde Victor
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Abstract
This research focuses on the manner in which the Cabinet clusters, which were formally established in 1999, have worked to synthesize, synchronize and streamline policy as part of their task to facilitate decision-making. It also focuses on how they have interfaced with service delivery programmes, in terms of assessing progress and challenges as a general feedback to decision makers, as well as on how they have facilitated collective decision-making in a context where departments remain individually accountable for the delivery of line function programmes.
Not withstanding the significant amount of work done to ensure integrated governance, government continues to function in a disjointed manner in several areas. One of the reasons for this is that integrated governance is not properly institutionalized. The Cabinet clusters are an ad hoc arrangement to assist the executive in executing its duties. They are, in a sense, an extension of the Cabinet Secretariat. They are a character trait of a managerialist style of government. There does not seem to be a discernible connection between the clusters at national and those at provincial level, and this serves to undermine integrated governance, because it sets the operations of the national executive apart from those of other spheres of government
Description
MM thesis - P&DM
Keywords
Intergovernmental relations, Interdepartmental relations