Decentralisation is often seen as a means of improving the efficiency, transparency and responsiveness of local service provision. Since the 1990s, an ambitious, politically driven decentralisation program has been implemented in Uganda. Has it worked? This paper from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) suggests that Uganda has only partially implemented decentralisation and had mixed results. A system relying on conditional grants and unfunded mandates, partly resulting from donor requirements, has undermined the ability of local authorities to improve service delivery.
Decentralisation may fail due to faulty institutional design, poor sequencing or failures to prioritise and provide appropriate services where needs are varied. Uganda has had particular problems with institutional design. Decentralisation efforts have focused on the devolution of spending functions to local authorities. However, central government quickly imposed a revenue structure that made local authorities overly dependent on the centre. Local capacity building has taken a ‘learning-by-doing’ approach and lagged behind the devolution of government responsibilities. The design of Uganda’s decentralisation program continues to be refined. It has seen limited improvements to service delivery.
Data from Uganda’s period of decentralisation shows some improvement in education and water provision. Health provision, in contrast, has been weak. These findings are attributed to three main factors:
- National relevance: The education sector has received more resources than other sectors. Improvements are not directly linked to decentralisation but to central government’s efforts to strengthen basic education services. The same is true, to a lesser extent, for water.
- A sectoral structure that favours horizontal accountability: School management committees are one of the best examples of involving beneficiaries in the management and monitoring of services. This is harder in areas where the relationship between service providers and beneficiaries is sporadic.
- Higher autonomy of local authorities in decision making: Improvements in the water sector are striking because it has not received much funding or central government attention. It has, however, had a financing structure that allows local authorities to allocate resources according to local needs.
A number of lessons emerge from Uganda’s experience:
- The flow of donor funds into priority areas such as education and health care created pressure on central government to ensure they were being effectively spent. This lead to a vertical structure of accountability.
- Vertical accountability towards central government and the donor community may have undermined local autonomy and the horizontal accountability links on which decentralisation should be based. This, along with capacity constraints and flaws in financial management, has hampered service delivery.
- The quality of services has been better where local authorities have had full responsibility than in areas in which there are overlapping responsibilities between the centre and local authorities.
- Uganda should look to provide greater responsibility to local authorities. This should strengthen devolution, allow resources to be allocated according to local priorities and create incentives for better expenditure management. It should also involve more streamlined reporting to satisfy donor requirements.
