Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.

• Decentralization, Accountability and Local Services in Sierra Leone : Situation Analysis, Key Challenges and Opportunities for Reform

  World Bank (Washington, DC, 2014-04-15)

  Following years of civil war that ended
 in 2002, Sierra Leone has pursued a policy of
 decentralization, devolving responsibility for many
 government functions to the Local Council level. The aims of
 this policy include achieving a more equitable and inclusive
 access to public services across the national territory, in
 part to alleviate regional inequities that contributed to
 the civil war. The implementation of the decentralization
 policy has faced many obstacles, however, including the need
 to rebuild local government institutions and capacity after
 30 years of centrally dominated governance; the limited
 devolution of financial resources; and multifaceted
 political economy hurdles. This report, first, analyzes the
 current state of decentralization in Sierra Leone; second,
 identifies the most prominent challenges to continued
 decentralization; and, third, discusses options for the way
 forward. The report draws on qualitative and quantitative
 data collected from both central and local government
 stakeholders, and takes the perspective that
 decentralization and strengthened local governance
 institutions are an effective means to localize development
 and improve the effective and equitable delivery of key
 public services. The study focuses on progress to date and
 standing challenges in four key areas of analysis: fiscal
 decentralization, human resource decentralization, ensuring
 inclusivity and accountability in local governance, and
 ensuring efficiency and responsiveness in service delivery.
• Sub-National Performance Incentives in the Intergovernmental Framework

  Smoke, Paul; Lewis, Blane D. (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-06)

  This paper provides background for the
 Government of Indonesia as it considers if and how to
 introduce more robust local government performance
 incentives into the intergovernmental fiscal framework. The
 next section briefly examines the forces that have driven
 the recent national wave of interest in improving local
 government performance. This is followed by a review of the
 relatively limited set of local government performance
 incentives currently in force in Indonesia. The fourth
 section provides a conceptual overview of how to think about
 the possible expansion of local government incentive
 programs, outlining the potential role(s) of such programs
 in general and the key issues involved in designing and
 implementing them. The fifth section tentatively considers a
 number of options for additional local government incentives
 in Indonesia that the central government may wish to
 consider pursuing. The paper concludes with an outline of
 next steps for moving forward with the possible development
 of more purposeful and meaningful performance incentives in
 Indonesia's intergovernmental fiscal framework.
• Intergovernmental Reforms in the
 Russian Federation : One Step Forward, Two Steps Back?

  Golovanova, Natalia; Kurlyandskaya, Galina; De Silva, Migara O.; Andreeva, Elena (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2009)

  Intergovernmental reforms in the Russian
 Federation: one step forward, two steps back? Is a critical
 analysis of Russia's intergovernmental reform program
 which began in the early 1990s. It assesses the effects of a
 broad range of reforms adopted over two tumultuous decades
 during which the Russian Federation experienced significant,
 and at times drastic, political regime changes, coupled with
 a similarly turbulent economic growth trajectory. This
 environment reshaped intergovernmental relations, requiring
 certain fiscal responsibilities to be delegated to the
 sub-national levels. These reforms, however, were not always
 accompanied by the kinds of administrative and political
 structures required to support a truly devolved system of
 intergovernmental fiscal relations. As this study indicates,
 in recent years there has been a tendency to recentralize
 some powers that had been granted to sub-national
 governments under earlier reforms, a trend that may call
 into question the future of fiscal decentralization in the
 federation. Moreover, the current global economic downturn
 has had a significant effect on Russia' economic
 growth, largely because of the country's overdependence
 on oil, gas, and mineral exports. It is likely that in the
 present economic climate the political regime will be
 inclined to further limit sub-national autonomy.