Decentralisation in Africa: goals, dimensions, myths and challenges

Abstract

Decentralisation is a complex and often somewhat elusive phenomenon. Many countries around the world have been attempting-for several reasons and with varying degrees of intention and success-to create or strengthen sub-national governments in recent years. Africa is no exception to either the decentralisation trend or the reality of its complexity and diversity. Drawing selectively on the large academic and practitioner literature on decentralisation and the articles in this volume, this article briefly outlines a number of typical prominent goals of decentralisation. It then reviews some key dimensions of decentralisationfiscal, institutional and political. These are too frequently treated separately by policy analysts and policy makers although they are inherently linked. Next, a few popular myths and misconceptions about decentralisation are explored. Finally, a number of common outstanding challenges for improving decentralisation and local government reform efforts in Africa are considered. 1 A number of recent reviews or comparative studies of decentralisation consider evidence on various aspects of its performance, including Bahl and Linn (

Explaining the Performance of Decentralized Recruitment in Tanzania Local Government Authorities on Institutional Context Perspective

“…In this article, I followed this second definition because the focal point of the article is the transfer of authority and responsibility from central government to local government. The theory of decentralization assume that proximity between government and citizen"s increases access to local information and local context which inform the service providers about the needs of local population (Smoke, 2003;Hasenan, 2010). This is further expected to increase the ability of local government to be more responsive, transparent and accountable to local population (Barnett et al 1997) while others argue that decentralization increases innovations, creativity to local problems (Rondinelli & Cheema, 1983) With respect to recruitment, one of the professed goal of decentralized recruitment is to increase effectiveness through increasing the fit between qualification of selected candidates and job requirements of the local government staff.…”

Decentralization by Devolution; Perceptions of Councilors on the Level of their Decision Making Authority in Local Government Experience from Tarime Town Council

“…Indeed, literature for instance Smoke (2003) indicate that many local governments fail to implement their development plans because of the lack of adequate funding. One of the well established principles of decentralization and local governance is that the decentralized functions should be accompanied by an adequate level of financial and human resources (Johnson, 2000).…”

“…Indeed, literature for instance Devas (2003) and Smoke (2003) shows that often governments push so many functions down to local governments without the corresponding level of funding. Literature (Olowu, 2003;URT, 2008) further argues that often governments give a lot of planning powers to local governments but without the necessary financial and human resources to implement the plans.…”

Decentralization as a Tool for Ethnic Diversity Accommodation: A Conceptual Analysis

“…The functions and authority are centrally delegated as a matter of administrative expediency and can be revoked by the center when circumstances warrant with the objective of efficiency in government through centralized allocation of resources, including manpower and finance. Since, administrative decentralization is often seen as part of civil service reform it requires the creation or development of administrative bodies, systems and mechanisms, at local or intergovernmental level, to manage and support the decentralization process (Smoke, 2003).…”