The Seal of Good Local Governance in Digos City: Challenges and Opportunities

This descriptive study aimed to explore the challenges and opportunities of the local government of Digos in its endeavor for the Seal of Good Local Governance (SGLG) and the Performance Challenge Fund (PCF). Mixed methods research design was employed, particularly the convergent parallel approach. The qualitative part constructed the enabling factors and areas for improvement in the implementation of the SGLG and PCF based on accounts of personnel of the City Government who were directly involved in the assessment and preparations, representatives of oversight government agencies relevant to the seven SGLG criteria and PCF project beneficiaries. The quantitative part described the level of perceptions on the contribution of the SGLG and PCF to improved local governance in the City based on a survey to the constituents. Thematic analysis and descriptive statistics were used to process the data. It was found that the enabling factors in the accomplishment of the SGLG award of Digos City were anticipation, articulation and delegation, while areas for improvement were risk aversion, information and data management, participation and devolution. The perception of the people of Digos City also revealed a high level of agreement (x=3.98, n=399) that the SGLG and PCF elicited improved local governance. Considering each criteria of the SGLG, it was found that the areas on financial administration and business friendliness and competitiveness have garnered very high levels of perception. Based on these findings, it was inferred that the challenges for Digos City for better implementation of the SGLG law in the future are risk management and increasing spaces for participation while the opportunities are implementation of e-governance and increasing capacity for decentralization.