Decentralization Program Research Articles

Towards climate action and UN sustainable development goals in BRICS economies: do export diversification, fiscal decentralisation and environmental innovation matter?

ABSTRACTSeveral nations across the world place a high focus on achieving carbon reduction objectives. Climate change is the most catastrophic result of human activity. Eco-innovation, export diversification, and fiscal decentralization are all viable approaches for resolving environmental concerns and achieving environmental sustainability goals. These tactics could help countries and levels of government pursue what they consider to be sustainable development. This research assesses the combined impact of export diversification, green technical innovation, and fiscal decentralization in order to accomplish the environmental sustainability goals of the BRICS countries from 1970 to 2020. The long-run dynamic equilibrium between the chosen variables is explored using the augmented mean group (AMG) approach. The results show that while the use of green technology and renewable energy improves the environment, ecological harm is aggravated by export diversification, fiscal decentralization, and economic growth. The BRICS nations should exercise caution while implementing export diversification and fiscal decentralization programs.

Barriers and Facilitators for Successful Community Forestry: Lessons Learned and Practical Applications From Case Studies in India and Guatemala

Internationally, numerous examples have been of efforts to promote community-based forest management (CBFM) through forest decentralization programs that promote forest conservation and livelihood improvements. Although there are successful examples, those efforts have been met with mixed success. This article proposes an analytical framework for evaluating the case studies of CBFM, highlighting the interconnection between community capital, land tenure, and markets. The analytical framework is used to analyze factors contributing to community forestry success focusing on two case studies in central India and northern Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve. We evaluate how the interplay of community capitals (i.e., community skills and resources), tenure, and markets is crucial for the successful replication of community forestry efforts. Specifically, we demonstrate that community capital factors such as social (bonding and linking), human, natural, and political; tenure factors such as a legal basis for rights, implementation of rights policy, community engagement in decision-making related to rights, withdrawal rights; and market factors such as market availability for the product, market accessibility for the producers, and profitability are the most important for facilitating and replicating community forestry efforts. Our framework can be used by nonprofits and policymakers to engage with community forestry planning as well as for monitoring and evaluation.

Impact of Land Tenure Security Perception on Tree Planting Investment in Vietnam

With over 14 million hectares allocated, Vietnam’s forest and forestland allocation has been one of the largest natural resource decentralization programs in the developing world over the last three decades. Given this remarkable achievement, critics are concerned about the low rates of household tree planting investment and question the roles and effects of land institutions on investment. Using nested logit and ordered probit models, this study examined the effects of household perceptions of forestland tenure security on tree investment and the causal effects among 239 households in 11 communes in the Central Highlands. The findings suggested that, given the land titling in hand, household perceptions of potential land expropriation in the next five years did not thwart investments in both short-term acacia and long-term cashew horizons. The number of laborers, cost of plantations, off-farm and agricultural incomes, migrant status, soil condition, plot location, government subsidies, and a positive market outlook all played a significant role in this investment. Interestingly, we found that short-term tree planting had the reverse impact on decreasing land users’ perceptions of land tenure security, possibly because each tree rotation shortens the 50-year land use period recorded in the Land Use Right Certificate. However, market prospects and government subsidies may significantly counteract the negative perception of LTS and encourage households to plant trees. The policy implication is that, in addition to strengthening LTS to ensure households’ current and future land use rights, tree investment-incentivized policies should be implemented.

Relação entre a Descentralização Financeira via PDAF e Rendimento Escolar

ABSTRACT The essay discusses the Federal District Administrative and Financial Decentralization Program (PDAF), educational achievement, and age-grade distortion in elementary and middle school, based on legislation, documents, and data from the Federal District School Census. It is a qualitative study guided by Bardin’s Content Analysis (2016). It concludes that: the Program has not shown improvement in educational achievement; the dropout and the percentage of 20.7% (Censo-DF, 2018) of the students under age/grade distortion is a fact to be faced through political actions and management of school projects. Political actions are proposed in financial and pedagogical management at the central and local levels, observing the principles of democratic management.

Assessment on Fiscal Decentralization Program for the Period From 2001-2005 in Vietnam

Assessment on Fiscal Decentralization Program for the Period From 2001-2005 in Vietnam

Multi-vector management model of decentralization program management in Ukraine

Multi-vector management model of decentralization program management in Ukraine

The Impact of Local Government Capacity on Public Service Delivery: Lessons Learned from Decentralized Indonesia

The issue of poor local government capacity has been considered one of the problems impeding the implementation of decentralization, especially in developing countries. This study addresses this issue in the case of Indonesia, a country that has implemented massive decentralization (administrative, fiscal, and political) over the last two decades. The study aims to provide empirical evidence for the impact of local government capacity on public service delivery in the decentralization regime. Local government capacity is measured based on a policy capacity framework at the organizational level that includes three types of capacities: analytical, operational, and political. The regression of the panel data model, estimated with the Hausman–Taylor method, reveals that government capacity in terms of interactions of three types of capacities has a positive impact on public service delivery. This finding indicates the three types of capacities are complementary and effectively improve local government’s achievement in delivering public services. While operational capacity (including fiscal capacity) has long been reckoned in designing decentralization, this result gives empirical evidence that other critical capacities should be well considered, political and analytical capacities. It underpins the efforts to internalize local government capacity in designing and implementing decentralization programs.

Aceh Province's Local Policy in An Effort to Develop Sharia Economy

The birth of local policy is the impacts of the decentralization program established by the government after the collapse of the new order system . Decentralization programs provide more spaces for local governments to make policies that govern their regions . The economics aspects is one of the important instruments that can improve welfare and prosperity in a country or region. economics management in the regions will run well with government intervention and support through policies implemented as a form of legality . The method used in this study is a literature study with secondary data, which is then analyzed descriptively . Aceh as a special autonomous region has been created sharia economic development policies through Qanun Tourism, Qanun Halal Products Guarantee , Qanun Islamic Financial Institutions , Qanun Baitul Mal. The policy will have an impacts on the development of the Islamic economy with a strong commitment from the relevant parties , the existence of concrete programs that 's easy to implement , synergy between institutions and related parties as well as intense education about the added value of the halal lifestyle

Manajemen Berbasis Sekolah dalam Meningkatkan Kualitas Belajar Siswa

School-Based Management (SBM) is an alternative form of school or madrasa management, in the education decentralization program, where schools have the right to adapt better and more adequate education to their students. SBM is a strategy in managing education in madrasas that optimizes every madrasa's internal resources. The type of research is qualitative research, with data collection techniques through interviews, observation, and documentation. In the analysis using several stages, namely; data reduction, data presentation, drawing conclusions and verification. The results of the research show that the planning and implementation of activities carried out are following standard procedures given by the head of the madrasa by applying indicators to improve the quality of student learning.

An institutional analysis of ‘power within’ local governance: A Bazaari tale from Pakistan

Power dynamics in local governance have profound implications for the outcomes of processes of political decentralisation within developing countries. Attempts to improve participation and service delivery through strengthened local and regional governance have been frustrated by the inability to understand and transform the relationship between power and formal and informal institutions. Through a theoretically informed empirical study of the relationship between power and institutions within local governance, this paper addresses this challenge through developing the notion of ‘power within’. Analysis of Batkhela Bazaar in the Malakand district in Pakistan reveals distinct fields of power relating to the market, political representation and local administration, and the evolving interactions between institutions within and across these fields. Results demonstrate how these fields of power, and the agents operating within them, actively shape the interaction between formal and informal institutions of local governance in a process of contiguous evolution. Understanding of ‘power within’ prompts revised thinking on how best to harness emergent institutional forms to promote progressive and inclusionary local governance and develop more effective state decentralization programmes.

Local Government and Community Participation; Prospect of the Unit Committee Model in Ghana´s Decentralization Program

The unit committee model representing the basic structure of Ghana’s decentralization and local government program plays a crucial role in grassroots mobilization and community participation in the decision-making and implementation process. This paper reviews the prospects of the unit committee models as a unique feature of Ghana´s decentralization and local government policy for promoting participation at the local level. Data for the study was obtained through semi-structured interviews, non-participant observation, focused group discussions, documents, and material culture analysis. The study was conducted within the Nsawam-Adoagyiri and Suhum Municipalities in the Eastern Region of Ghana. The study revealed that local expectation from the unit committee members is inconsistent with their formal role as the basic structure of the decentralization and local government policy in Ghana. Unrealistic public expectations coupled with inadequate financial resources have resulted in total disregard for the functioning of the unit committee system. This makes the unit committee model seems to exist only by name since its impact is not so much felt at the local level making the position of the members who are elected and partly appointed a mere formality. This study recommends effective public education and institutional mechanisms to enhance the functioning of the unit committee model for members to effectively commit to their role to achieve the purpose for which the system was instituted.

Decentralization Reforms in Developing Countries Designed to Champion the Interests of Central Politicians and not Grassroots Development

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.

Centralization and Decentralization in Administration and Politics: Assessing Territorial Dimensions of Authority and Power

Globally, many countries are implementing decentralization programs as a means of promoting both democratic and developmental objectives. Unfortunately, however, scholarship has yet to offer a comprehensive framework within which to assess and reform central-local relations. This article seeks to overcome the "division of labor" that has long separated analyses of administrative and political structures, and to provide stronger conceptual vocabulary for describing and analyzing the complexities of centralization and decentralization in both administration and politics. After developing two distinct continua of administrative and political centralization/ decentralization, the paper then combines them in a single matrix able to highlight the wide range of strategies and outcomes that emerge from the complex interplay of the two spheres. Depending on where a country lies within the matrix, it is argued, decentralization strategies may do more harm than good. Devolution strategies are especially problematic in settings with strong local leaders, and should never be attempted without careful analysis of the preexisting character of central-local ties.

Decentralization Policy in Ukraine: How Voluntary Amalgamation, Inter-Municipal Cooperation and Fiscal Incentives Impacted the Local Government System

Abstract This paper examines the progress of implementing a comprehensive decentralization program in Ukraine. Ukraine was practically the last country of the former Soviet bloc to undertake a comprehensive decentralization program. The decentralization program was based on three pillars: (1) a reliance on voluntary amalgamation of the local government units, (2) the use of inter-municipal cooperation, and (3) enhanced financial incentives. The authors examine how these policies were implemented as well as the impact on local governments service delivery and fiscal capacity. The analyses are based on available data and the application of statistical tests measuring fiscal resources to the population size and other variables of the local government. The study has revealed some significant flaws in Ukrainian decentralization policy implementation. The voluntary approach eventually had to be abandoned for a mandatory approach. The weak progress in inter-municipal cooperation did not establish improved service delivery across a large number of local government units. The financial incentives with greater sharing of taxes did not provide sufficient additional resources to make the units financially sustainable. Finally, the results of the local government elections held in the amalgamated units did not reveal widespread support for the new units and the decentralization reforms. These issues create significant risks for the final success of the decentralization reform.

The Local Government System in Bangladesh: An Anatomy of Perspectives & Practices

Bangladesh inherited a colonial model of local government system as it was under the rule of the British Raj and Pakistan for 190 and 24 years respectively. As matter of fact, several attempts have been taken during various regimes since independence for strengthening local governments through decentralization. Despite those efforts, it has been broadly criticized for its over-centralization. Nonetheless, over the last few years, the country has been seen to go through some major reform efforts in strengthening the role and capacity of local government institutions (LGIs). More specifically, a range of decentralization programs and projects have been undertaken through the collaborative efforts of government and development partners. On this backdrop, this study attempts to analyze the local government system in Bangladesh, with the intent to identify whether the current local government system is constraining the performance of local governments. The study is qualitative in nature and data has been collected by reviewing various secondary sources adopting content analysis techniques. Drawing on the shreds of evidence from the available literature, the study argues that despite the recent decentralization initiatives, the current local government system in Bangladesh is in no way facilitating the pathways for the effective local governance of LGIs. Rather its functioning is inhibited for various underlying factors like- excessive deconcentration and delegation with limited devolution; Interfering role of MPs in local governance; conflicting functional assignment of LGIs and line agencies; inadequate resource mobilization and high central dependency; a dearth of adequate staffing in LGIs and absence of coherent legal framework.

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The article discusses the theoretical and methodological basis of scientific research related to identifying the level of security for the economic development of the regions of Ukraine, taking into account regional characteristics and defining the problems of modern regional policy. Attention is focused on the features of the economic potential of a region, taking into account its various components (infrastructural, production, social, economic and others) within the framework of the program of decentralization of power in Ukraine and predicting the economic potential of each region. The systemic method and the method of modeling the economic development of regions allow us to consider the regionalization of the economy as an organic component of the processes of integrated management in the economic sphere.

Decentralization and District-Level Decentralization in Amhara Region

This paper examines the process of decentralization and district level decentralization programs in the Amhara region. It addresses the decentralization processes in Imperial, Derg, and EPRDF regimes. The depth and degree of decentralization in the three consecutive regimes were different as the process of decentralization in the current government meant to be deeper and extensive and pushed powers, functions, and roles into the local government. The process of decentralization in the current government has transferred powers and functions to the districts. However, the district level decentralization process has faced many challenges. The paper revealed that unclear assignments of powers and functions, executive dominations, upward accountabilities, top-down planning, lack of skilled manpower, lack participatory systems, failure of the councils in holding the executive accountable, lack of adequate budget, lack of revenue mobilization capacity, lack of responsiveness, and accountability among councils were the main challenges that impede in the process of the DLD process.

Decentralization of public healthcare services in the Province of Sumatera Utara, Indonesia

The research examined the effectiveness of decentralization program on the healthcare sector at the provincial level in the context of political and administrative decentralization. It adopted qualitative approach and employed the technique of in-depth interview, observation on documentation. Informants consist of public servants, practitioners, community and relevant stakeholders. The implementation of decentralization does not work that ideal for some reason: the devolution and the decentralization programs are not conducted simultaneously, mutually support and complimentary; the lack of local apparatus capabilities to understand and carry out the principles and the practices of the programs in the field; the limitation of financial sources and support to conduct the programs.

Decentralised Governance in Indonesia’s Disadvantaged Regions: A Critique of the Underperforming Model of Local Governance in Eastern Indonesia

This article investigates the challenges facing decentralised governance in poor and underdeveloped areas in Eastern Indonesia. The Timor Tengah Selatan (TTS) regency in West Timor in Nusa Tenggara Timur province is taken as a case study. Indonesia’s radical decentralisation programme applied a national model of decentralised governance, not taking into account the different conditions applying to disadvantaged regions ( daerah tertinggal, DRs). In the TTS regency, decentralised governance is underperforming in two core areas – administration and fiscal viability – while making some progress in political decentralisation. Governance is restricted by limited social capacity, a poor resource base, and a lack of investment capital and infrastructure. The question then arises: if the uniform model of decentralisation is not performing adequately in TTS, is there a more appropriate model of local governance and central subnational relations that can better perform in DRs? While not detailing the features of a new model, this article identifies the areas requiring policy development.

A stochastic dominance approach to program evaluation with an application to child nutritional status in Kenya

AbstractMost existing program evaluation methods examine the average impact of a program. This necessarily overlooks the potential for different program impacts over different parts of the distribution of the variable of interest. To overcome this limitation, we develop a novel methodology for program evaluation which combines stochastic dominance with difference‐in‐differences methods. We use this new method to evaluate the impact of a large decentralization program in Kenya on changes in child nutritional status, where one's primary concern is about sharp adverse (i.e., negative) changes. Using standard difference‐in‐differences regression as a baseline, we find , no statistically or practically significant mean impact. In contrast, our stochastic dominance estimations reveal that project expenditures have had different impacts on different parts of the distribution. In particular, they are associated with less deterioration in children's nutritional status among the worst‐off children, indicating that the program effectively functions as a nutritional safety net.