While it is often claimed that decentralisation will improve public service delivery, there is little evidence to indicate this is so. This is especially true for sub-Saharan Africa, where many countries have adopted decentralisation policies but the results have, often been disappointing.

An article from the Institute of Development Studies, in the UK, examines the limited evidence from the region on the impact of decentralisation on delivery of public services such as health, education or infrastructure.

Decentralisation, in the sense of shifting power from central to local levels of government, has played an important role in sub-Saharan Africa’s history. Both the objectives and the form of decentralisation have varied greatly, from one country to another and over time. However, in the last two decades, the trend (at least in theory) has been towards democratic decentralisation or devolution. This implies a transfer of decision-making responsibility and financial or administrative power to directly elected local governments.

Decentralisation, has been seen as a means, not only of improving the quality and accessibility of public services, but also of increasing local participation, strengthening democracy, and reducing central government expenditure. Its impact on service delivery is indirect, in the sense that it affects intermediate factors that in turn influence service delivery. These intermediate factors include: access to local information; shifting the centres of decision-making power; resource availability; and administrative performance.

Since it is difficult to directly attribute improvements or deterioration in service delivery to decentralisation, especially over a region as diverse as sub-Saharan Africa, the author focuses on the impact of decentralisation on these intermediate factors. This provides a hypothetical link to its impact on service delivery.

Main findings include:

• Local elites and local representatives of ruling parties have tended to dominate sub-national decision-making structures, thereby limiting the impact of decentralisation on service delivery. However, there is some evidence that in many countries the extent and quality of participation is gradually improving.
• Governments have generally been reluctant to decentralise sufficient power, and in particular, financial resources to local governments to enable them to have a significant impact on services.
• There is limited evidence of local governments improving tax collection, but decentralisation that extends to the community level has generated voluntary contributions for service provision.
• There is little evidence of improved administrative performance at the sub-national level. In some cases this is due to inadequate devolution of power (especially over finance and staff) and lack of accountability at the local level but in others the low performance at the local level merely mirrors that in the country as a whole.

The author concludes there is little evidence to suggest that decentralisation significantly improved the quantity, quality or accessibility of public services in sub-Saharan Africa. However, this is qualified by pointing out that:

• Much depends on the type of service, the form decentralisation takes, how it is implemented, and the national policy environment.
• Given the limited amount of power that has actually been transferred, especially over finance, it could be said that decentralisation has not had a fair trial to date.
• Many of the weaknesses of local government are not due to decentralisation but due to wider problems of central governance.

There have been positive developments over the years, including a shift to more democratic forms of local governance enhanced participation and more fiscal decentralisation. In other words, there is a need to see decentralisation as a long, slow process of state-building and thus be realistic of what it can achieve.

Source(s):
‘Decentralisation and Service Delivery: Lessons from Sub-Saharan Africa’, IDS Bulletin 38 (1), IDS: Brighton, by Diana Conyers, 2007

id21 Research Highlight: 16 August 2007

Further Information:
Diana Conyers
Institute of Development Studies
Brighton BN1 9RE
UK

Tel: +44 (0)1273 873363
Fax: +44 (0)1273 606261
Contact the contributor: d.conyers@ids.ac.uk

Institute of Development Studies, UK