Achieving Better Service Delivery Through Decentralization in Ethiopia

Marito Garcia

Description

Achieving Better Service Delivery Through Decentralization in Ethiopia examines the role decentralization has played in the improvement of human development indicators in Ethiopia.
Ethiopia has made major strides in improving its human development indicators in the past 15 years, achieving significant increases in the coverage of basic education and health services in a short period of time. Improvements took place during a period of massive decentralization of fiscal resources, to the regions in 1994 and to woredas in 2002-03. The devolution of power and resources from the federal and regional governments to woredas appears to have improved the delivery of basic services.
Surveys of beneficiaries reveal that they perceive that service coverage and quality have improved. Beneficiary satisfaction has increased markedly in education, and less conspicuously in water and health services. In the south, the decentralization to woredas in 2002-03 tended to narrow differences in per capita expenditures on education and health across woredas. Decentralization disproportionately favored woredas that are remote (more than 50 kilometers from a zonal capital), food-insecure, and pastoral, suggesting that decentralization has been pro-poor.
Decentralization also narrowed the gap in educational outcomes between disadvantage and better-off woredas, especially in the south. Pastoral, food-insecure, and remote woredas gained in terms of the educational outcomes examined (gross enrollment rates, grade 8 examination pass rates, repetition rates, pupil-teacher ratios, and teacher-section ratios).

Informations

• Publié par: world-bank-publications
• Publié le: 15 février 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 14
• EAN13: 9780821373835
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

WORLD BANK WORKING PAPER NO. 131
AFRICA HUMAN DEVELOPMENT SERIES
Achieving Better Service Delivery
Through Decentralization in
Ethiopia
Marito Garcia
Andrew Sunil Rajkumar
THE WORLD BANK10982-00_FM.qxd 1/15/08 3:41 PM Page i
WORLD BANK WORKING PAPER NO. 131
Achieving Better Service Delivery
Through Decentralization
in Ethiopia
Marito Garcia
Andrew Sunil Rajkumar
Africa Region Human Development Department
THE WORLD BANK
Washington, D.C.10982-00_FM.qxd 1/15/08 3:41 PM Page ii
Copyright © 2008
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ISBN-13: 978-0-8213-7382-8
eISBN: 978-0-8213-7383-5
ISSN: 1726-5878 DOI: 10.1596/978-0-8213-7382-8
Marito Garcia is a Lead Economist in the Africa Region Human Development Department of
the World Bank. Andrew Sunil Rajkumar is an Economist in the same department.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been requested10982-00_FM.qxd 1/15/08 3:41 PM Page iii
Contents
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Acronyms and Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
1. Improvements in Health and Education Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Changes in Outcomes over the Past 15 Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Was Decentralization Responsible? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Decentralization and the Delivery of Basic Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Phasing in Decentralization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
A Framework for Understanding Service Delivery Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3. The Scope of Decentralization and Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers . . . . . . . 13
Subnational Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Decentralization of Functions and Responsibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Financing Social Services through Intergovernmental Transfers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4. How Did Decentralization to Woreda Level Affect
the Delivery of Social Services?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Increases in Wo re d a-Level Spending Following Decentralization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Decentralization Appears to Have Improved the Distribution of
Expenditures Across Woredas with Worse-off Woredas Benefiting the Most . . . . . 40
After Wo re d a-Level Decentralization Began, Some Evidence
of Lagging Woredas Partly Catching Up in Social Service Delivery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Teacher Redeployment Across Woredas and Within Woredas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Regression Analysis: Linking Expenditures with Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Decentralization’s High Potential to Improve Service Delivery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
5. Making Decentralization Work: Overcoming Constraints
in Decentralized Service Delivery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Critical Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Regional Innovations for Recruiting and Retaining Workers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Empowering Citizens and Communities to Improve Services
and Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Improving Accountability Mechanisms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
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iv Contents
APPENDIXES
A Calculating Block Grants Allocations From Federal Government to Regions
and Regions to Woredas Using the Three-Parameter Formula . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
B The “Fiscal Equalization” and “Unit Cost” Approaches for Block
Grant Allocations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
C Regression Results on Education Outcomes Before
and After Decentralization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
D Estimating the Effects of Decentralization on the Delivery
of Human Development Services in Ethiopia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
E Methodology and Technical Details for Data Analysis in Chapter 4 . . . . . . . . 107
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
LIST OF TABLES
1.1. Index of Real Government Expenditures and Spending
as Percentage of GDP, 1999–2005. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2. User Satisfaction with Government Health Services, 2005 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.3. Uith School Services, 2005. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.1. Trends in Service Delivery, 1995/96–2004/05 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.1. Assignment of Expenditure and Revenue Responsibilities for Education,
Health, and Water and Sanitation, by Tier of Government, circa 2005 . . . . . . . 16
3.2. A Wide Variation in Per Capita Block Grant Transfers to Regions . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.3. Two Different Approaches for Allocating Federal Resources to Regions . . . . . . 22
3.4. Regional Budgets and Share of Budgets Transferred to Woredas
in Four Regions, 2005/06 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.5. Block Grant Allocations in Oromiya, 2002/03–2004/05 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.6.rant Allocations in SNNPR, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.7. Trends in Regional Expenditure, 1993/4–2005/06 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.8. Aggregate Fiscal Performance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4.1. Wo re d a-Level Spending on Education and Health in SNNPR,
by Category of Spending, 2001 and 2004 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
4.2. Wo re d a-Level Per Capita Spealth
in Oromiya, by Category of Spending, 2001 and 2004. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.3. Wo re d a-Level Spending on Education and Health in SNNPR,
by Type of Woreda, 2001 and 2004. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.4. Recurrent Expenditure Per Primary Student in SNNPR,
2001 and 2004 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
4.5. Recurrent Expenditure Per Secondar44
4.6. Education Outcomes in SNNPR, 2001 and 2004 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4510982-00_FM.qxd 1/15/08 3:41 PM Page