Dissatisfied with centralized approaches to delivering local public services, a large number of countries are decentralizing responsibility for these services to lower-level, locally elected governments. The results have been mixed. The paper provides a framework for evaluating the benefits and costs, in terms of service delivery, of different approaches to decentralization, based on relationships of accountability between different actors in the delivery chain. Moving from a model of central provision to that of decentralization to local governments introduces a new relationship of accountability-between national and local policymakers-while altering existing relationships, such as that between citizens and elected politicians. Only by examining how these relationships change can we understand why decentralization can, and sometimes cannot, lead to better service delivery. In particular, the various instruments of decentralization-fiscal, administrative, regulatory, market, and financial-can affect the incentives facing service providers, even though they relate only to local policymakers. Likewise, and perhaps more significantly, the incentives facing local and national politicians can have a profound effect on the provision of local services. Finally, the process of implementing decentralization can be as important as the design of the system in influencing service delivery outcomes.

In the United States and other western nations, debates rage over whether welfare, medical care, educational programs, and many other aspects of public policy should be the responsibility of central govern ment, local government, or the private sector. In most nations, the issues of regional autonomy and decentralization are constantly in the news, with intensity varying from mild debate to open warfare. Less visibly, battles are continuously fought in the political arena over what groups should have the right to make decisions concerning the allocation of soci ety's resources. In response to these concerns, social scientists have focused consider able attention on the causes and consequences of centralization and de centralization in political, economic, and social organizations. Their analyses of centralization have been varied, ranging from systems that are quite small (e. g. , the family, the firm, and the community) to those sys tems that are very large (e . g. , the welfare state). While centralization is a concept of major concern in most of the social science disciplines, each discipline has tended to focus on centralization with a different set of interests. Economists have been very much concerned with the causes and the consequences of the concentration of economic resources. Polit ical scientists have long sought to understand the origins and conse quences of dictatorship and democracy. Sociologists have focused on inequalities in the distribution of power.

Communities need a holistic approach to address the problems that affect the people at the grass root. The planning of the direct beneficiaries involves decentralization in order to allow the lower power centers to widely take part in the development of society. Concerns of the grass root people form the need for decentralization and local governance. People’s involvement in the planning on the village level and all local government units, makes the identification and solving of the problem easier. High participatory levels of all the people especially the marginalized, encourages innovation to source for the appropriate solutions to the common problems that face society. It therefore calls a decentralized system that caters for the voters’ preferences while providing for their services. The people’s concerns call for local planning and the transfer of power to the public so that services are brought nearer to the people. This study will cover the aspects of local government and decentralization such as good governance, democratization, civil society, deconcentration, devolution and delegation, and its relation to the development of societies.

Decentralization is defined, interpreted and made a political issue in several-sometimes contradictory--ways. This book attempts to understand and describe one segment of the story: welfare policy. It makes an inventory of who are the main actors, what is decentralized in the social sector (administrative, fiscal, political, service-delivery structures, and institutions), where or to what level of governance decentralization is relevant, and how and by what means is decentralization implemented in the social sector.

Does decentralization enhance service delivery and poverty reduction? The expert contributors to this book address this fundamental question faced by policymakers and scholars in developing and advanced countries. The book illustrates that it is equally important for international agencies as well as bilateral donors to provide advice and assistance on decentralization that effectively supports poverty reduction. The volume builds on insights from the recent, political economy developments in the intergovernmental literature reviewed in the Handbook of Fiscal Federalism, and presents new empirical evidence on the effects of decentralization in different parts of the world. Policy-oriented papers evaluating the effectiveness of decentralized service delivery are presented. The role of institutions and the importance of sequencing of policies in ensuring effective outcomes are also considered. The volume presents some insightful empirical studies of the decentralization process from Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Africa. With a detailed empirical analysis of effective outcomes of public policies implemented at the sub-national level, and a focus on method, this book will be of great interest to academics specializing in public sector economics and public finance, and to national and international policymakers.

This paper reviews efforts to improve the efficiency and responsiveness of urban services delivery in developing countries. It argues that failures in urban service delivery are not merely the result of a lack of technical knowledge on the part of local government staff, but also reflect constraints and perverse incentives confronting local personnel and their political leadership, and these, in turn, are often the inadverten result of problems in the relationship between central and local government. The report views the spread of decentralization as a potentially fortuitous phenomenon. The decentralization now occurring is not a carefully designed sequence of reforms aimed at improving the efficiency of public service delivery ; it appears to be a reluctant and disorderly series of concessions by central governments attempting to maintain political stability. (Adapté du résumé de l'auteur).