| Abstract: Decentralization has been considered by many as one of the most important strategies in public sector reform agenda. This is because donors and governments in sub-Saharan Africa have considered decentralization as a strategy that will bring service delivery closer to consumers, improve the responsiveness of the central government to public demands and thereby reduce poverty, improve the efficiency and quality of public services and empower lower units to feel more involved and in control. In this connection, decentralization is linked to the concept of subsidiarity, that is, making decisions at the lowest feasible level. It is also meant to reduce overload and congestion at the centre and speed up operational decision-making and implementation by minimizing the bottlenecks associated with over-centralization of powers and functions at just one or two points in the hierarchy of a public service organization or minstry.1 In other words, greater efficiency of public management, arising from improved coordination and shorter decision making hierarchies (?less bureaucracy?) and improvements in political stability through the legitimization of differences in local needs and perspectives (pluralism). Consequently, decentralization seeks to increase the operational autonomy of line managers and agencies, leaving only broad policy guidelines to be worked out at the centre (Smith, 1985 Rondinelli et. al., 1989 Mawhood, 1993 Crook and Manor, 1998 Olowu and Wunsch, 1995 Olowu and Wunsch, 2004). This paper concentrates on one of the most important reasons behind the implementation of decentralization programmes in sub-Saharan Africa, that is, the capacity of decentralized governments because of their closeness both institutionally and spatially to citizens in the rural areas who are more responsive to the needs of the poor than the central government and thus are more likely to formulate and implement pro-poor policies and programmes. Using the Ghanaian experience of decentralization, which started with the creation of 110 decentralized governments called District Assemblies in 1988/89, the paper examines the impact of decentralization on poverty reduction. |
