ABSTRACT
Over the past two decades, the vast majority of countries – developed, developing and transitional – have undertaken some form of decentralisation (World Bank, 2000). However, the form and extent of decentralisation has varied greatly. Conventionally, a distinction is made between devolution, that is, political decentralisation to a locally elected body with some degree of autonomy and some local own revenue sources, and deconcentration, that is, administrative decentralisation to local agents of the central state. However, the distinction is not always clear-cut, with varying levels of local decision-making and central control, varying degrees of upward and downward accountability, and varying ranges of functions and resource transfers under either system. Moreover, in many countries there are parallel systems of devolution and deconcentration, often leading to tensions between the two. In this article, we are concerned primarily with devolution to elected local or regional governments.
