| Author |
| Dillinger, William | 1994 |
| Number of Pages: | 39 |
| Full Text |
| Decentralization And Its Implications For Urban Service Delivery |
Abstract |
| This paper reviews efforts to improve the efficiency and responsiveness of urban service 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 that these, in turn, are often the inadvertent |
| result of problems in the relationship between central and local government. |
| In this respect, the report views the spread of decentralization as a potentially fortuitous phenomenon. As a |
| political phenomenon, decentralization is widespread. Out of the 75 developing and transitional countries with |
| populations greater than 5 million, all but 12 claim to be embarked on some form of transfer of political power |
| to local units of government. But the objectives of decentralization as it is observed in practice -- appear only |
| tangentially related to administrative performance. 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. |
| Nevertheless, it presents reformers -- both domestic and in the donor community -- with an opportunity to |
| promote the kinds of fundamental reforms that have proven frustrating in the past. Because decentralization |
| has introduced a high degree of fluidity into the structure of intergovernmental relations, it has brought |
| flexibility into what had appeared to be an immutable system of governance. |
| The stakes are high. Decentralization affects not only urban services, but also social sectors, non-urban |
| infrastructure, and -- conceivably -- the stability of national economies and the effectiveness of |
| poverty-alleviation efforts. As the present degree of fluidity in intergovernmental relations is presumably |
| transitory, it is an opportunity that should be seized. |