DECENTRALISATION AND POVERTY REDUCTION:
EXPLORING THE LINKAGES
Jean-Jacques Dethier
The World Bank
OECD Workshop on ‘Decentralisation and Poverty Reduction:
From Lessons Learned to Policy Action’ organized by the
Development Centre and the DAC Network on Governance,
Paris, September 29-30, 2004
OBJECTIVE: Survey recent experiments of decentralised
public services targetted at poor people, and community-driven
development projects and discuss
- relationships between decentralisation, participation and
poverty reduction,
- analytical tools/indicators to measure the outcomes of
decentralization policies.
SOURCES:
-my own research (Dethier 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003)
-my forthcoming book, Growth and Empowerment, co-authored with Nick
Stern and Halsey Rogers (The MIT Press)
-recent empirical literature, including the World Development Report
2004, Making Services Work for Poor People, and a number of research
papers from the World Bank.
OUTLINE OF PRESENTATION
1.
Poverty Reduction and Empowerment
2.
Why decentralisation and participation should, in
theory, foster empowerment
3. Evaluating the impact of decentralisation on poverty
reduction
4. Tools and indicators to assess the impact of
decentralisation on empowerment
5. What does this mean for donors ?
Poverty Reduction and
Empowerment
a) What are “pro-poor” policies?
b) Preferable to speak of empowerment (opposite
of powerlessness) = Making decisions
concerning one’s lives
c)
Key factors in institutional structures that
foster empowerment: using local information for
decision-making, transparency, local capacity,
accountable officials, and participation.
DECENTRALISATION
IN THEORY AND PRACTICE
a)
In theory, good for empowerment if
decision making at the lowest possible
level of government where peer
monitoring can take place and where
officials are accountable
b)
In practice, participation and community
involvement have an impact on wellbeing through three main channels
Three channels
• *
Community involvement in selecting the
beneficiaries of anti-poverty programs improves
targetting.
• *
Participation and the other dimensions of
decentralisation improve the delivery of public
services
• *
Outcomes are shaped by inequalities and
uneven distribution of resources within the
community
Pathologies in the delivery of
public services
o Governments may misallocate budgets, spending resources
on the wrong groups of people.
o Even when resources are allocated correctly, they may not
reach their intended destinations if organizational and
incentive problems in public agencies lead to corruption,
misappropriation or theft.
o Even when resources reach a school or health clinic,
providers may have weak incentives, motivations, or
capacities to deliver services effectively.
Under what conditions does
decentralisation reduce poverty?
[Successful Projects]
•
•
•
•
EDUCO, El Salvador
Ceará, Northeast Brazil
Uganda
Mexico Progresa
Need for More Research to Answer
Concrete Policy Questions
1. What kinds of institutional changes improve the
provision of basic services?
2.
What kinds of incentives make service
providers perform effectively?
3. Under what conditions do public-private
partnerships work well?
4.
What kinds of interventions influence
individual and social demands for better services
and opportunities, particularly for poor people?
TOOLS TO ASSESS THE IMPACT OF
DECENTRALISATION
ON WELL-BEING
*
Household Surveys and LSMS (Living
Standard Measurement Surveys)
* Public Expenditure Tracking Surveys (PETSs)
and Quantitative Service Delivery Surveys
(QSDSs)
* Randomized Project Evaluation
By way of conclusion:
What donors should remember
a)
Country / project specificity
b)
Participatory approach
c)
Do not forget about local power structures
d)
Results based evaluation
e)
Learning by doing