Ethiopia’s model for delivering basic services appears to be succeeding and to confirm that services improve when service providers are more accountable to citizens. As discussed in the World Development Report 2004, accountability for delivering basic services can take an indirect, long route, in which citizens influence service providers through government, or a more direct, short route between service providers and citizens. When the long, indirect route of accountability is ineffective, service delivery can suffer, especially among poor or marginalized citizens who find it challenging to express their views to policymakers. In Ethiopia, the indirect route of accountability works well precisely because of decentralization. Service providers are strictly accountable to local governments for producing results, but in turn, the local authorities are held accountable by the regional and federal governments. A degree of local competition for power and influence helps to induce local authorities and service provides to remain open to feedback from citizens and take responsibility for results. The direct route of accountability has been reinforced by measures to strengthen financial transparency and accountability (educating citizens on local budgets and publicly providing information on budgets and service delivery goals), social accountability (improving citizens’ opportunities to provide feedback directly to local administrators and service providers), and impartial procedures to redress grievances. Woreda-level (district) spending has been a very effective strategy for Ethiopia to attain its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Woreda health and education goes to pay for health extension workers (HEWs) and teachers. This study finds evidence that woreda-level spending in health and education is effective. Owing to the intervention of HEWs, the use of health services has increased, especially among the poorest quintiles. Finally, the effect of woreda-level spending on agricultural extension workers is associated with higher yields for major crops. Spending on agricultural extension workers increases the probability that farmers, regardless of the size of their plots, will use improved farming techniques. Education, health, and agriculture account for 97 percent of woreda spending. This is complemented by support for capacity building and citizen voice. Clearly, spending efficiency is improved through better capacity, more transparency, and greater accountability to citizens.

The African Economic Outlook 2015 analyses Africa’s growing role in the world economy and predicts the continent’s two-year prospects in crucial areas: macroeconomics, financing, trade policies and regional integration, human development, and governance.

Ethiopia’s model for delivering basic services appears to be succeeding and to confirm that services improve when service providers are more accountable to citizens. The approach chosen in Ethiopia is pro-poor with the bottom 40 percent benefiting relatively more. The approach is also reducing other disparities including gender and historic.

Faguet identifies the factors that determine the outcomes of national decentralization on the local level

Investment needs in highway and transit, and linkages to air, rail, and water.

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

The considerable importance of housing to the urban and national economy contrasts sharply with housing conditions and official policies that exist in many developing countries. For all but the middle- and upper-income groups, housing is usually costly in relation to income and the quality of dwellings available. Cramped, crowded, and unsanitary settlements are the lot of low-income families, conditions that debilitate their energy and reduce national productivity. Families in illegal dwellings constantly face the threat of eviction as well as scarcities of water, sewerage, and transport. Often, under the banner of slum clearance, low-income groups are removed to higher-quality dwellings located far from income-earning opportunities and asked to pay rents they cannot afford. This study is intended to contribute to the discussions of housing policy options among urban planners and policymakers in developing countries. It does not attempt to analyze the optimal allocation of investment in urban areas or to suggest what place housing should have in such investment. There is no argument for a shift of capital and other resources from other sectors into housing. Instead, the principal intention is to achieve a better understanding of the workings of the urban housing market, especially as it affects low-income families, so as to bring about an improved use of the resources already used for housing and to allow new resources to be used effectively.