Donors have strongly advocated decentralization on the grounds that it broadens the participation of citizens in development processes, thereby increasing government responsiveness to their needs. Although there have been studies seeking to establish the veracity of this claim, they remain weak on two fronts. One, while wealth differentials affect citizen participation, these studies approach citizens as a homogenous group. Two, participation is mostly viewed narrowly—participation in elections. Drawing on empirical data from Ghana’s decentralization reform, this paper addresses these gaps by questioning how pro-poor citizen participation in decentralized development planning has been. I argue that although Ghana’s decentralization was propagated on championing pro-poor grassroots participation in governance and development, in reality, participation is elitist and has failed to reflect the voices of the poor. My findings demonstrate that the participation structures and processes used in local development planning are unfavourable to the poor in many respects. Elite and representative participation is promoted to the detriment of broad citizen participation. This exclusion is resulting in surging apathy of citizens towards the district assemblies—institutions hitherto trusted as their development champions. This paper concludes that the poor will remain voiceless despite decentralization unless the structural barriers to their participation are tackled in decentralization design and praxis.

Decentralization has been considered as a powerful tool for enhancing development. However, after nearly four decades of implementing decentralization in many countries in the Global South, the evidence suggests that the impact of decentralization on development is weak and uninspiring. This article argues that the design of a decentralization program is always critical with regard the extent to which it can promote development. The evidence across the developing countries demonstrates that the motivations behind decentralization are typically not politically neutral, political interests have been the key motivation behind the adoption of various types of decentralization programs in the developing countries. As a result, the faith in decentralization as a technical tool that could propel grassroots development needs to be reconsidered, since political interests and not development are the main determinants of decentralization. This is because, in practice, the decentralization designs in many developing countries tend to limit rather than expand the political, fiscal, and administrative powers of subnational governments, while the center retains control. This severely limits the development potential of subnational governments.