Legislative Decree 107 of 2011 - Local Administration Law.

This Law, comprising 161 articles, aims at (i) implementing the principle of decentralization by transferring powers and responsibilities to administrative unit councils, expanding and clearly defining their competencies, and enabling them to exercise their mandates effectively to support the economic, social, cultural, and spatial development of the administrative units; (ii) establishing capable administrative units that can prepare and implement local development plans and projects efficiently, through restructuring administrative levels and defining local administrative frameworks in line with their core functions, while assigning them responsibility for services, economic development, education, and other matters of direct concern to citizens, and limiting central authorities to planning, legislation, regulation, and the implementation of major projects beyond the capacity of local units; (iii) increasing the financial resources of administrative units to enable them to perform both service delivery and development roles, ensuring community responsibility for sustaining and developing these resources, improving living standards, expanding service provision, enhancing local economic opportunities, creating jobs, and strengthening the integration between service and development functions; (iv) promoting balanced local development and community advancement within the local framework, ensuring equitable opportunities among districts, and fostering inter-unit cooperation through the establishment of joint administrations capable of implementing major programs and projects effectively; (v) simplifying service delivery procedures for citizens by establishing citizen service centers that provide certificates and public services directly, and facilitate access to electronic government services, thereby reducing cost, effort, and time for citizens.
Article 3 establishes a Supreme Council as the highest coordinating authority for decentralization, responsible for preparing and overseeing the national decentralization plan within a defined timeframe, issuing implementing regulations for local units, updating fees and resources, and forming coordination committees to manage the legal, administrative, and technical transfer of powers to subnational authorities.
The Law then structures local administration into legally autonomous units - governorates, cities, towns, and municipalities - each with elected councils chosen by universal, direct, secret, and equal suffrage, with membership determined by population and fixed four-year terms. These councils represent citizens and exercise local self-governance under state policy, managing balanced and sustainable development across economic, social, cultural, and spatial sectors, including infrastructure, public services, environment, and local projects. At the city, town, and municipality level, councils and their executive committees are directly responsible for preparing and implementing development plans and ensuring follow-up at the local level, under official oversight and public monitoring to guarantee transparency and implementation of declared programs.
At the governorate level, governorate councils hold broader strategic authority, including preparing and approving development plans (long-, medium-, and annual), coordinating with central and local bodies, promoting investment, supervising executive committees, and exercising devolved central powers over budgets, resources, major projects, disaster management, public services, and inter-council coordination, all within an independent financial framework. At the most local level, neighborhood committees are established and headed by a mukhtar with appointed members to address community-level matters. The Law also regulates the financial systems and procedural rules governing all levels of local administration.