Procurement and Service Delivery : An Overview of Efforts to Improve Governance of Public Procurement at Local Levels in South Asia
Over the past decade, the overly centralized governance structures commonly found across South Asia have begun to change, with program and fiscal responsibility being devolved to local level government authorities and community-based organizations....
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| Format: | Other Procurement Study |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2013
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2009/11/16532499/procurement-service-delivery-overview-efforts-improve-governance-public-procurement-local-levels-south-asia http://hdl.handle.net/10986/12636 |
| Summary: | Over the past decade, the overly
centralized governance structures commonly found across
South Asia have begun to change, with program and fiscal
responsibility being devolved to local level government
authorities and community-based organizations. This has led
to greater participation of ordinary citizens in governance
and public decision-making. The move to localize
decision-making creates enormous opportunities for
increasing the effectiveness of public spending since it
creates the potential for establishing direct accountability
of governance mechanisms to citizens. It also raises a
number of significant challenges in ensuring that public
funds are spent effectively at the local level, and provokes
important new questions regarding the manner by which
governments can maintain oversight over the quality of
assets. This paper provides an overview of the activities
supported under the project, with the aim of contributing to
a broader perspective on improving governance and service
delivery at the local level. The paper is divided into three
parts. In part one the authors explore the challenges of
spending money effectively at the local level, with a
special focus on the governance challenges that exist in
public procurement. In part two, the authors explore
different approaches to addressing those challenges by
discussing innovative work that has taken place with the
support of the Project in the areas of regulation,
contracting, transparency, and accountability. In part
three, the authors analyze some broader themes and key
questions that remain to be addressed while developing a
strategic research and operational agenda around local level procurement. |
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