Decentralization, Democracy and Development: Recent Experience from Sierra Leone (World Bank Country Study)

Description

The question of whether political, fiscal and administrative decentralization improves government effectiveness is hotly debated among researchers and policymakers. There are theoretical arguments both for and against decentralization, but empirical work is scarce. Decentralization, Democracy and Development: Recent Experience from Sierra Leone is a contribution to this literature. The book also makes a valuable contribution to the debate on whether decentralization is a viable strategy state-building strategy for post-conflict countries. A collection of eight papers written by nine authors, the book first documents a complex decentralization process in Sierra Leone from 2003-07. During this period, the Government of Sierra Leone (GoSL) re-established elected district and urban councils across the country, transferred certain responsibilities for primary services and local investment and some financial resources to the new councils, and invested heavily in building the administrative infrastructure and capacity of the local councils. Measured by the budget figures, the degree of power that has been transferred to local councils appears quite small. However, from local councils having no autonomy to having autonomy over 6 percent of government primary spending is a significant qualitative change of the intergovernmental relationship. As the authors documented, the progress was hard fought. Compared to most other SSA countries that have embarked on decentralization, Sierra Leone s progress in building local government capacity and restructuring the fiscal system is enviable. The authors conclude that improved security and public services are possible in a decentralizing country but Sierra Leone s progress would not have been possible without significant effort at fiscal decentralization and intensive investment in local government capacity building. The most critical ingredient for this promising but fragile reform process is the dynamic leadership team in charge of promoting the new institutional framework and their persistent effort to achieve quick improvement in the local government system and public services.