Decentralization in Client Countries : An Evaluation of World Bank Support, 1990-2007

Independent Evaluation Group

Washington, DC : World Bank

关键词: ABSENTEEISM;    ACCESS TO INFORMATION;    ACCOUNTABILITY;    ACCOUNTABILITY ARRANGEMENTS;    ACCOUNTING;   

DOI  :  10.1596/978-0-8213-7635-5
RP-ID  :  45408

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The Independent Evaluation Group (IEG)assessed the effectiveness of Bank support fordecentralization between fiscal 1990 and 2007 in 20countries, seeking to inform the design and implementationof future support. Given the difficulties of measuring theresults of decentralization, the evaluation usedintermediate outcome indicators such as strengthened legaland regulatory frameworks for intergovernmental relations,improved administrative capacity, and increasedaccountability of subnational governments and functionariesto higher levels of government and to citizens to assess theresults of Bank support in these 20 countries. To examinepotential lessons at a sectoral level, the evaluation alsoassessed whether Bank support for decentralization improvedintermediate outcomes for service delivery in the educationsector in 6 of the 20 countries. Bank support contributed tomore effective decentralization substantially in more thanone-third of the 20 cases and modestly in the others. Themost successful aspects of Bank support pertained to thelegal frameworks for intergovernmental relations, theframeworks for intergovernmental fiscal transfers, andsubnational financial management Bank support was lesseffective in clarifying the roles and responsibilities ofdifferent levels of government and in improving own-sourcerevenue mobilization by subnational governments. This wasoften a result of lack of political will. Other things beingequal, Bank support brought better results where there wasconsensus around the reform within the country prior to Bankengagement and when the support was combined with incentivesfor institutional reform at the subnational level. Lookingforward, the results of Bank support for decentralizationcan be strengthened with more timely and coordinatedanalytical work to underpin it, by better coordinatingfragmented sector-by-sector interventions, and byaccompanying support for policy reform with technicalassistance to strengthen local government capacity.