THE ROLE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENTS IN CONTAINING COVID-19 IN ETHIOPIA.

Drawing from qualitative analysis of constitutions, proclamations, archival documents and interview results, the study examines the role of local governments in containing coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic in Oromia regional state and Addis Ababa city Administration based on their powers and functional competences. It analyzes the efforts made by the local governments in containing coronavirus pandemic. The analysis indicates that the federal government has broad policy making power, and as a result, can impact local government actions. The regional governments and zonal administrations also oversee the activities of local governments through the respective sectoral bureaus. In addition, local governments in Ethiopia do not have adequate protection under the FDRE Constitution. However, their role in mitigating the corona virus pandemic and similar pandemics in the future cannot be undermined. The study also reveals that, during this COVID-19 pandemic, most of the activities are all managed from the center by a centralized task force which has a governance structure at federal, regional and local levels for decision making around the pandemic and meant to co-ordinate all the activities. This shows that the role of local governments is insignificant, and limited only to implementation as every activity is under the command of ministerial committee. Hence, both senior levels of governments are playing key roles in local governments' actions. Finally this paper recommends strengthening local systems and building the capacity of local governments to manage the policy responses and to improve their role as laboratories of innovative ideas and encouraging them to initiate new ideas and methods of confronting local problems such as coronavirus (COVID-19). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]