Decentralization in Client Countries : An Evaluation of World Bank Support, 1990-2007
The Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) assessed the effectiveness of Bank support for decentralization between fiscal 1990 and 2007 in 20 countries, seeking to inform the design and implementation of future support. Given the difficulties of measur...
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| Format: | Publication |
| Language: | English en_US |
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Washington, DC : World Bank
2012
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2008/08/9850636/decentralization-client-countries-evaluation-world-bank-support-1990-2007 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/6543 |
| Summary: | The Independent Evaluation Group (IEG)
assessed the effectiveness of Bank support for
decentralization between fiscal 1990 and 2007 in 20
countries, seeking to inform the design and implementation
of future support. Given the difficulties of measuring the
results of decentralization, the evaluation used
intermediate outcome indicators such as strengthened legal
and regulatory frameworks for intergovernmental relations,
improved administrative capacity, and increased
accountability of subnational governments and functionaries
to higher levels of government and to citizens to assess the
results of Bank support in these 20 countries. To examine
potential lessons at a sectoral level, the evaluation also
assessed whether Bank support for decentralization improved
intermediate outcomes for service delivery in the education
sector in 6 of the 20 countries. Bank support contributed to
more effective decentralization substantially in more than
one-third of the 20 cases and modestly in the others. The
most successful aspects of Bank support pertained to the
legal frameworks for intergovernmental relations, the
frameworks for intergovernmental fiscal transfers, and
subnational financial management Bank support was less
effective in clarifying the roles and responsibilities of
different levels of government and in improving own-source
revenue mobilization by subnational governments. This was
often a result of lack of political will. Other things being
equal, Bank support brought better results where there was
consensus around the reform within the country prior to Bank
engagement and when the support was combined with incentives
for institutional reform at the subnational level. Looking
forward, the results of Bank support for decentralization
can be strengthened with more timely and coordinated
analytical work to underpin it, by better coordinating
fragmented sector-by-sector interventions, and by
accompanying support for policy reform with technical
assistance to strengthen local government capacity. |
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