ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the efforts, which generally complemented and were sometimes essential to the more direct, capacity-building activities. It discusses PATC-Contemporary departmental development corporations' (CORDES) Office of Basic Analysis was at the center of efforts to deal with external constraints through institutional reform. Agency for International Development and supportive national organizations also attempted to promote more permanent institutional reform by sponsoring applied research on decentralization topics. Drawing on this applied research, the decentralist lobby that emerged from the Integrated Regional Development and Disaster Relief, Rehabilitation, and Reconstruction projects had some significant success in winning budgetary reforms that give CORDES more predictable funding and greater autonomy and influencing implementation of the García administration's microregional approach. The decree also established a fund for priority microregions that is administered by the Special Project for the Development of Microregions in Economic and Social Emergency.
