Decentralization and its implications for [urban] service delivery

This paper reviews efforts to improve the efficiency and responsiveness of urban service delivery in developing countries. Failures in urban service delivery are often not the result of a lack of technical knowledge on the part of local government staff, but reflect the constraints confronting local personnel and the political leadership. These constraints are often the inadvertent result of problems in the relationship between central and local government. 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.

This report investigates decentralization as a political phenomenon. While there are several ways to organize the delivery of urban services, it is evident that the various pieces of the intergovernmental relationship have to fit together. This becomes increasingly evident in countries that are undergoing political decentralization. The political impetus behind decentralization has prompted central governments to make political concessions hastily. But granting local elections is a step that can be taken quickly. What is slow and difficult is the working through of new regulatory relationships between central government and local government; the conversion of annual budgetary transfers within a central government into intergovernmental transfers that are transparent and predictable, and the development of credible local political systems. Many of the problems associated with the current wave of decentralization arise from the failure to match the pace of political decentralization to the pace of regulatory and other organizational reforms.