Accountability Archives – Decentralization Net

When decentralized finance meets political incentives

August 28, 2026 LPS Alliance

Decentralization is often expected to improve development outcomes by bringing public decisions closer to the people and the places they are intended to serve. Subnational governments may have better information about local needs, face stronger […]

Is there an economic payoff from creating new local governments? Evidence from Brazil

July 11, 2026 Limabenla Jamir

Changing local political boundaries by splitting local governments to create more localized governance is a common, yet contested reform pursued worldwide. Proponents argue smaller local government units can improve services, boost local economic activity, tailor […]

LPSA Seminar: Decentralization, National Oversight and Accountability — A Kenya–South Africa Dialogue

July 3, 2026 Jacqueline Muthura

The LPSA Expert Working Group on Sub-Saharan Africa (LPSA Africa) is a regional working group of the Local Public Sector Alliance that brings together government officials, policy practitioners, scholars, civil society organizations and citizens who […]

Gen Z protests and the case for inclusive and effective multilevel governance

December 4, 2025 LPS Alliance

Over the past several years, countries across different parts of the world—including Africa, South Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Latin America—have experienced a surge of youth-led protest movements often referred to as “Gen Z […]

Centralization, Elite Capture, and Service Provision: Evidence From Taiwan

July 27, 2025 LPS Alliance

Champions of decentralization often argue that decentralization reforms have the potential to achieve a more inclusive and efficient public sector. This notion is based on the assumption that local governments—being closer to the people—are more […]

Empowering Local Governments in the Western Balkans for Climate Resilience

June 11, 2025 Marina Jandrevska

The Western Balkans consists of six upper-middle-income economies: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia. These economies have shown significant growth over the past two decades, with a doubling of their economic […]

Local Government Performance Management in Uzbekistan

September 3, 2022 LPSAManager

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) released a policy paper which contextualizes the local government performance measurement framework (LGPMF) for Uzbekistan, and provides a starting point for the development of performance indicators and the creation […]

Making Devolution Work for Service Delivery in Kenya

April 10, 2022 LPSAManager

Kenya adopted a new constitution and began the process of devolution in 2010, ceding many formerly national responsibilities to new county governments. As an institutional response to longstanding grievances, this radical restructuring of the Kenyan […]

Electoral Accountability and Fiscal Federalism: The Case of Peru

September 19, 2021 LPS Alliance

Accountability is at the heart of the democratic enterprise. One commonly touted benefit of decentralization is that it promotes this accountability by allowing sub-national governments to target fiscal policy more precisely to the varying preferences […]

USAID: Academic research and donor programming on decentralization

November 16, 2020 LPS Alliance

Beginning in the 1990s there was a wave of enthusiasm for the idea that decentralization would promote both democratic governance and economic efficiency. Throughout the 2000s, that optimism increasingly ran up against a second generation […]