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Available online at http://www.journalijdr.com ISSN: 2230-9926 International Journal of Development Research Vol. 08, Issue, 10, pp. 23736-23742, October, 2018 ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLEORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE OPEN ACCESS SPORTS AND DECENTRALIZATION: AN OUTLINE OF A TYPOLOGY OF MUNICIPAL SPORTS POLICIES IN BENIN *1David Coffi AKOUETE, 1Emile-Jules ABALLOT, 1Bienvenue TAOUEMA 2 and Nadine HASCHAR-NOE 1University of Abomey-Calavi (Benin), National Institute of Youth, Physical Education and Sport, Laboratory of Social and Human Sciences 2Laboratoryof PRISSMH-SOI (EA 4561) F2SMH-University of Toulouse III (FRANCE) ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article History: The process of decentralization implemented in most of African countries and precisely in Benin Received 17th July, 2018 by the years 2003 with the election of the town councilors transferred to the new municipalities Received in revised form competences in sport’s field. These competences lead the municipalities in the implementation of 22nd August, 2018 the municipal sporting policies with the intention of ensuring the sporting development of their Accepted 16th September, 2018 territory: physical-activities and sporting considered as activities that came under general interest th Published online 30 October, 2018 and public service mission. This mission, inherited from French colonization, remains overall little implemented in Benin confronted with economic, sociocultural and policies realities quite Key Words: different from those of France. These various realities led the municipalities to adopt various Sporting Practices, strategies and actions to ensure or not the development and or the animation of sport life of their Local Govemorship and territory. Thus while inspiring by the model of Loret (2004), various types of municipal sport Decentralization. policies are identified in Benin during the period 2003 to 2008. They are the proactive municipalities, the reactive municipalities, the tag-along municipalities and the passive municipalities. This diagnostic and comparative study of the municipal sport policies actually proceeds of a contribution to the current reflections giving to better including/understanding the effects of decentralization imposed on the development of the sport in the majority of the countries of French-speaking Africa. Copyright © 2018, David Coffi AKOUETE et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Citation: David Coffi AKOUETE, Emile-Jules ABALLOT, Bienvenue TAOUEMA and Nadine HASCHAR-NOE. 2018. “The violence between intimate partners in the city of praia: Report of the victims of the neighborhoods of santo antónio and terra branca”, International Journal of Development Research, 8, (10), 23736-23742. INTRODUCTION production of sports monographs, that the municipalities belonging to the same category make different choices of The research presented focuses on the typology of municipal policies sports events (Akouété, 2012). As has been shown by sports policies in the context of decentralization in Benin 1 numerous studies, French-speaking African countries have between 2003 and 2008 . In this article, we propose to focus inherited from their independence a sport organization based on the types of sports policies in Benin by drawing on the on French colonization and a sport policy based on the French concrete actions carried out by the municipalities, field co-management model of sport (Gouda, 1986, 1997, Deville- observations and interviews with local elected representatives. Danthu, 1997, LoumFatou, 2004, Baba-Moussa, 2001, 2004). More precisely, it is a question of categorizing the types of This model seems to be poorly adapted to political and socio- districts encountered and their characteristics and then cultural realities (Gérard, 1997; Gouda &Chifflet, 1991) but showing, on the basis of a quantitative survey and the also financial and organizational (Haschar-Noé, 2004a; Bouchet&Kaach, 2005). However, the decentralization process *Corresponding author: David Coffi AKOUETE University of Abomey-Calavi (Benin), National Institute of Youth, Physical implemented in Benin since 2003 with the election of local Education and Sport, Laboratory of Social and Human Sciences elected representatives transferred competencies to the new municipalities in several areas, including Physical Activities and Sports Activities (PASA). These competences relate to the 1We thank Patrick Bayeux who initiated and accompanied this thesis work construction and maintenance of sports facilities and the during his early years 23737 David Coffi AKOUETE et al. Sports and decentralization: An outline of a typology of municipal sports policies in Benin possibility for municipalities to provide material and financial METHODOLOGY AND DATA COLLECTION assistance to the structures involved in the organization and running of sports activities on their territory. They thus set up a In order to answer this question, we have carried out various municipal sports policy. PAS are therefore considered to be of collections of data combining quantitative and qualitative general interest and a public service mission and "the methods. A quantitative survey was carried out using organization and development of sport as a fundamental questionnaires from resource persons or sports service officials 2 element of education, culture and social life" . The local in 63 communes out of 77 in Benin. By retaining the three authorities are thus associated with the organization and municipalities with special status, we have selected 60 animation of communal sporting life in order to develop mass municipalities of common right by dividing them by sports, an objective which is given priority in the Sport population group as indicated below. Charter. In Benin, decentralization, which aims to increase autonomy decision-making of the municipalities and the Table 1. Number of municipalities in Benin by population and existence of a Sport Charter3 framing the objectives to be municipalities surveyed pursued, appear a priori as two conditions favorable to the emergence and development of local sports policies (Haschar- Population group Number of Number of municipalities in municipalities Noé, 2004b). Benin, a West African country with an area of Benin surveyed 114,763 km², has a population of about 9,984,000 inhabitants 100,000 or more inhabitants 11 11 in 2013, more than 40% of whom are under 14 years of age. 80,000 inhabitants and less than 100,000 21 17 This country is classified by the International Monetary Fund 60,000 inhabitants and less than 80,000 30 20 20,000 inhabitants and less than 60,000 12 12 and the World Bank as one of the heavily indebted poor Special status 3 3 4 countries . Informal private sector enterprises are those which Total 77 63 contribute almost exclusively to the country's economic activity, with 94.3% of employed persons, far from those in These questionnaires made it possible to carry out a typology the public sector, which comprise only 3.6% of employed of the municipal sports policies and to gather the views of the 5 persons . Finally, in the area of administrative organization, people interviewed on the sports policy of the municipality decentralization has resulted in the creation of 77 (number and quality of sports facilities, animation, 6 municipalities with legal personality and financial autonomy, organization of sports service, local demands, relations with 546 districts, and 12 departments. However, the process of associations, partners, sports budgets, etc.). A second series of decentralization is a relative failure in Africa, due to several questionnaires was carried out among the practitioners and reasons: a complete copy of a colonizing model that is ill sports leaders of the 63 municipalities surveyed: 195 teachers adapted to socio-economic and cultural realities and poorly of physical education in public secondary schools; 45 sports accepted by the population, maintaining the centralizing role club leaders (35 exploitable questionnaires); 395 self- of the State and lack of administrative decentralization, lack of organized practitioners (330 exploitable questionnaires) were respect for democratic values, transfer of skills with asked about the adequacy of sports equipment to their insufficient financial, technical or human resources (Awortwi, practices and the effectiveness of sporting activities of 2011, NachMback, 2003, Sawadogo, 2001). municipalities in order to perfect the typology. Finally, we produced sports monographs of three target municipalities In this context of political, administrative, but also financial belonging to municipalities most involved in sports policies. and fiscal "unfinished" decentralization (Laléyé, 2003), how These quantitative data were complemented by semi-structured can municipal sports policies respond to the national objectives interviews with 15 local elected representatives and 4 for the development of mass sports and the demand for local Departmental Directors of Youth, Sports and Leisure sport. We will show that the municipal sports policies are (DDYSL) as well as field observations carried out in the public rather in a first stage of their structuring and are more oriented spaces of municipalities surveyed. The questionnaires by a concern for the affirmation of the local identity, carried by addressed to municipalities gave rise to several statistical