Photo credit: Julien Harneis

Decentralised governance in developing countries

VoxDevTalk

Published 13.09.23
Photo credit:
Julien Harneis

What do we know about the impacts of decentralised governance in developing countries?

Read "Decentralised Governance: Crafting Effective Democracies Around the World" by Jean-Paul Faguet and Sarmistha Pal (editors) here.

Decentralised governance has been widely adopted in developing countries in the hope of incorporating local information into policymaking, enhancing accountability and encouraging democratic participation in the delivery of public services to the poor and needy. However, evidence on countries' experience with this change has highlighted problems of corruption, elite capture, and clientelism that have undermined the success of decentralisation in improving targeting of transfer programmes. In this episode of VoxDevTalks, Dilip Mookherjee discusses some of the key takeaways for policymakers from his extensive research on decentralised governance, including his recent chapter in the new e-book on Decentralised Governance.