A well-functioning financial sector in developing countries is extremely important for economic development. This requires local institutions, which originally were often state-controlled, but gradually non-state actors conquered the financial market. Recently the growing importance of alternative forms of finance in many African countries has become remarkable. Although often created by donors, their role changed when financial inclusion, economic liberalisation and decentralization became more important. Microfinance institutions started to compete with banks by also offering a broad range of services (loans, savings, transfers, accounts, insurance). This is a frugal innovation (less regulated financial institutions compete with regulated ones at a lower cost). Meanwhile, mobile payment revolution has been taking place in Africa and other developing regions. This article analyzes these developments and suggests that these new financial technologies contribute substantially to the 4th industrial revolution in the third world countries. Financial resources that become more available replaces development initiatives and allows developing countries finance industrial and agricultural revolutions with local money. We will deal in detail with one example – the role of M-Pesa in helping people to be 'financially included' and trying to learn from their experience with customer satisfaction for other countries.
This chapter addresses the theory of decentralization and its experience since the early 1970s. National governments centralized the financing and management of public services and infrastructure in both industrialized and developing countries during the 1950s and 1960s for many reasons. In developing countries, many political leaders sought to build their new nations through the central government&s;s control of the economy. The dominant development theories of the 1950s and 1960s called for strong central government control over industrial and agricultural sectors as well as the public services and infrastructure needed to accelerate economic growth. Continued economic globalization through international trade and investment gave cities and metropolitan regions important new economic roles in the 1990s. The success of fiscal decentralization in emerging market countries has depended heavily on the quality of national governance. Positive impacts of decentralization on infrastructure investment also depend in part on the accuracy of local opinion about needs and priorities.
Sascha Lamstein, Amanda Pomeroy–Stevens, Patrick Webb, Eileen Kennedy
Based on the data collected in Uganda, Nepal, and Ethiopia, the papers included in this supplement fill a critical gap in evidence regarding multisectoral National Nutrition Action Plans. The studies offer new data and new thinking on how and why governance, effective financial decentralization, and improved accountability all matter for nutrition actions in low-income countries. This introductory paper offers an overview of the current state of evidence and thinking on the multisectoral nutrition policy cycle, including how governance and financing support that process. It also explores the benefits of applying a systems lens to understand the dynamic, enabling processes of the policy cycle-from research to knowledge and ultimately action-and to provide more dynamic and accurate information for nutrition advocacy and evidence-based decision-making. It concludes with key findings from the 5 country-level studies included. Several important themes emerge: the egregious gap in human resources needed for effective nutrition actions in most low-income settings, the value of research on bottlenecks and successes, and the need for routine monitoring of national policies and plans to measure their effectiveness in achieving both their own stated goals and global sustainable development goals. Reviewing these studies together provides a path forward in building stronger, evidence-based multisectoral nutrition policies and supporting implementation of the nutrition activities included within them.
Elmar Steurer, David Manatsgruber, Esther Prudence Jouégo
Projects in the energy sector in Africa suffer from a number of barriers. Especially the combination of political instability and an unclear regulatory framework hampers the private sector to realize the investment possibilities in the field of decentralized rural electrification. For debt based projects these barriers result in prohibitively high interest rates – roughly 15% while the return on investment does not exceed the low 10% area. This situation leads to strong reluctance from private investors to provide equity. A possibility to encourage private investors to step in could be a separation of the different risks, especially separating the typical high sovereign risk of a country from the commercial risk of the energy project. As a result, the separated risks can be clearly allocated to different investor groups looking for investment opportunities going along with distinct risks. A structured approach is proposed through which private international investors are exposed only to the general political risk while international development banks cover mainly the regulatory risk. Finally, the newly invented financial instrument convertible grant by the electriFI initiative of the EU provides an equity substitute to take over the commercial risk. With this additional financial support, decentralized electrification projects in Africa have the possibility to be implemented and the potential to be scaled up.
Suncica Dimitrijoska, Svetlana Trbojevik, Наташа Богоевска, Vladimir Ilievski
The Republic of Macedonia experienced a rapid growth in drug addiction after its independents in 1991. The complexity of the problem represents a serious challenge for all relevant factors involved in creation of policies as well as actors in delivery of health, education and social services. Provision of necessary service required appropriate amendments of relevant laws based on the adopted international legislation. The most significant legal changes were introduction of the principles of pluralisation of social protection (Law on Social protection, 2004), that enabled emerging of new private for profit and nonprofit actors as providers of services as well as introduction of the principle of decentralization, enabling establishment of services on local level. Additionally, a number of national and local strategies and programs were developed and adopted within the system of health and social protection. These changes contributed to an increase in the number of available services offering variety of treatments responding to the individual needs of beneficiaries. Despite the increase in offered service, the state has yet to respond to the ever rising problem of addicted children. So far, little has been done for this age group of addicts that requires specialized and adjusted service provision. Provided social services are facing the problem in the sustainability of the available services provided within the nongovernmental sector that is mainly financed from foreign funds.
Reports that in recent years the switch from monopolistic sole sourcing from the private sector to approved book lists and decentralized financing, selection, and ordering by schools has removed the need for competitive bulk procurements of teaching and learning materials (TLM) organized by Ministries of Education (MOE), which often proved problematic in the past. Anglophone Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has seen a shift towards decentralized textbook supply systems based on MOE-approved lists and school-based choice from school per capita purchasing budgets, though the shift has proved less pronounced in Francophone Africa. All procurement bids should include minimum physical production specifications and price as part of the evaluation criteria, because failure to do this leads to shorter book life and higher costs. Good examples of bid documentation and evaluation methodologies, instruments and criteria—compulsory, qualitative, and price—for different types of procurement remain readily available, but good procurement requires good, professional supervision.
Emil Teșliuc, Lucian Pop, Margaret Grosh, Ruslan Yemtsov
Outlines the institutional and financing arrangements of the last-resort income support (LRIS) programs in seven country cases and distills lessons from the programs’ various approaches to administrative and financial decentralization. The implementation arrangements of LRIS programs in Eastern Europe and Central Asia were shaped, to different degrees, by two factors: (1) the legacy of the social protection systems of the former socialist regimes and (2) the decentralization reforms affecting all transition countries during the 1990s. Most countries in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region have several tiers of administration involved in the management and implementation of LRIS programs, and in general, the institutional map of the programs is complex. An important issue in almost all countries reviewed in this study is the lack of clear procedures for program administration. Lessons include a prominent warning against decentralized funding, which runs the risk of creating inequities and may lead to serious resource constraints.
Egypt, currently in the throes of major political change, will likely undergo various reforms in the next few years. Some reforms are likely to give local entities, including schools, greater control over education finances. In 2007, the Government of Egypt began to decentralize some non-personnel recurrent finances from the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance (MOF) to lower-level jurisdictions using a number of simple and transparent enrollment- and poverty-based funding formulas. By 2010, a sizable amount of capital expenditure was also being transferred to lower levels of the system via similar equity-based funding formulas. Prior to these formula-based decentralization efforts, a large amount of education-related non-personnel recurrent finances had been moving from the MOF to the muderiyat. Analysis of these latter allocations reveals that they are highly inequitable on an inter-governorate per-student basis, ranging from EGP 966 per student in New Valley to EGP 25 per student in 6th of October. This paper examines the nature and potential causes of this inequity and puts forth a way in which these funds could also be transferred using an equity-based funding formula that “holds harmless” those muderiyat that would lose absolute amounts of money under a more equitable distribution scheme.
This paper examines how organization and financing of maternal health services influence health-seeking behavior in Bosomtwe district, Ghana. It contributes in furthering the discussions on maternal health-seeking behavior and health outcomes from a health system perspective in sub-Saharan Africa. From a health system standpoint, the paper first presents the resources, organization and financing of maternal health service in Ghana, and later uses case study examples to explain how Ghana's health system has shaped maternal health-seeking behavior of women in the district. The paper employs a qualitative case study technique to build a complex and holistic picture, and report detailed views of the women in their natural setting. A purposeful sampling technique is applied to select 16 women in the district for this study. Through face-to-face interviews and group discussions with the selected women, comprehensive and in-depth information on health- seeking behavior and health outcomes are elicited for the analysis. The study highlights that characteristics embedded in decentralization and provision of free maternal health care influence health-seeking behavior. Particularly, the use of antenatal care has increased after the delivery exemption policy in Ghana. Interestingly, the study also reveals certain social structures, which influence women's attitude towards their decisions and choices of health facilities.
Assesses the extent to which the shift toward local participatory poverty reduction projects and decentralization efforts have enhanced the pace of development, increased equity in access to public programs, and improved the sustainability of development efforts. The evidence appears to indicate that local capture can overwhelm the benefits of local information, and demand-driven, competitive application processes can exclude the weakest communities and exacerbate horizontal inequities. Co-financing requirements can worsen the exclusion of the poorest households and communities and attenuate the impacts of poverty reduction programs. Greater community involvement tends to improve resource sustainability and the quality of infrastructure, and the most successful programs are implemented by local governments that have some discretion but are downwardly accountable. Few studies of participatory poverty reduction programs show clear poverty impacts, though some evidence indicates that projects with large livelihood components perform better than other participatory projects, and need more evaluations.
Examines trends in public education spending in northern Sudan, spending on education by administrative level and school level (preschool, basic, secondary, and tertiary), and the composition of recurrent education spending; analyzes the composition of public per-student spending and spending on education staff; and examines the state share in total public spending, per-student spending, and the composition of recurrent education spending. The education system in northern Sudan is decentralized, with varying capacities to deliver education services across states, and there are significant state differences in education inputs, outputs, and outcomes. The share of public spending on basic education in northern Sudan was smaller than the share in neighboring countries and lower middle-income countries in both Sub-Saharan and North Africa, and was also smaller than the Education for All Fast-Track Initiative (EFA-FTI) benchmark. Most states allocated a large share of their total public spending to education, on average 31 percent, but there were notable differences in public per-student spending across the 15 states.
The secondary schools bursary scheme was introduced by the Government in the \n1993/1994 financial year. It was issued directly from the Ministry of Education to schools to enhance access, ensure retention and reduce disparities and inequalities in the provision of secondary school education. In 2003 Ministry of Science Education and Technology in line with government policy on decentralization, devolution and empowerment of communities, suggested that from financial year 2003/2004, the funds would be administered to constituency and district levels (MOEST, 2003).Fortunately, the same year NARC government came up with a secondary school bursary scheme for the same purpose though it was by CDF with funds from the Ministry of Planning. In particular, both bursaries are targeted at students from poor families, those in slum areas, those living under difficult conditions, those from pockets of poverty in high \npotential areas, districts in Arid and semi-arid lands (ASAL), orphans and the girl child. This study sought to examine the impact of bursary schemes on retention of students in public secondary schools in Gem District. The study was guided by the following objectives: To assess how adequacy of bursary schemes fund impact on retention of students; to examine the extent to which consistency of bursary schemes fund impact on retention of students; to assess how socio economic background of students impact on retention of students in public secondary schools; to determine the level at which public sensitization on bursary schemes impact on retention of students. The study was guided by the theory of socialist economics of education. A theory whose proponent is Louis Blanc. The theory emphasizes the need to create an economy that redistributes income from the rich to the poor so as to create equality of being. The study sourced \nrequisite data from 322 students‟ beneficiaries, 24 senior teachers and 12 Principals. The respondents were drawn using a combination of random and purposive sampling procedures. The study adopted descriptive design which was used to analyze primary data. Data was analyzed using frequency distributions, cross tabulations with SPSS and MS-Excel software packages. \nQualitative data in form of experiences, opinions and suggestions, were analyzed using \nqualitative procedures and were used to strengthen quantitative findings. The results of the study indicated that majority of beneficiaries were funded from CDF 78% and then followed by SESBAF 14%.Similarly, other students received both 6%. Bearing this in mind it found out that the total fees was too high as compared to the bursary that this providers were giving out being KES 3000 for day scholars and KES 5000/8000 for boarders. Even so, there were very strong convictions that bursary schemes were only supplementing students‟ fees and not generally paying school fees wholesomely. On the contrary, the data collected from schools further revealed that significantly higher number of beneficiaries 63% got bursary from other bursary providers, well-wishers and parents supplement respectively. Further findings revealed that \nstudents were not assured of continuous funding and that the disbursements were not in line with the school calendar year. This therefore motivated this study to recommend for allocation of more funds to constituencies and financing of a few beneficiaries adequately to completion, disbursement of funds to constituencies in line with schools calendar year. On the same note, without good governance and efficient management of Constituency Bursary Committees in relation to allocation of bursaries to beneficiaries in schools and financial management in particular, investment in education from any source would not bear the necessary fruits. \nConsequently, a research could be carried out to investigate the impact of NGO bursary scheme on retention of students in public secondary schools and a further study on school initiative programmes to ensure students retention in public secondary schools.
Immunization programs are important tools for reducing child mortality, and they need to be in place for each new generation. However, most national immunization programs in developing countries are financially and organizationally weak, in part because they depend heavily on funding from foreign sources. Through its Sustainable Immunization Financing Program, launched in 2007, the Sabin Vaccine Institute is working with fifteen African and Asian countries to establish stable internal funding for their immunization programs. The Sabin program advocates strengthening immunization programs through budget reforms, decentralization, and legislation. Six of the fifteen countries have increased their national immunization budgets, and nine are preparing legislation to finance immunization sustainably. Lessons from this work with immunization programs may be applicable in other countries as well as to other health programs.
Honoratha Mushi, K. Mullei, J. Macha, Francis Wafula · 7 authors
Health worker training is a key component of the integrated management of childhood illness (IMCI). However, training coverage remains low in many countries. We conducted in-depth case studies in two East African countries to examine the factors underlying low training coverage 10 years after IMCI had been adopted as policy. A document review and in-depth semi-structured interviews with stakeholders at facility, district, regional/provincial and national levels in two districts in Kenya (Homa Bay and Malindi) and Tanzania (Bunda and Tarime) were carried out in 2007-08. Bunda and Malindi achieved higher levels of training coverage (44% and 25%) compared with Tarime and Homa Bay (5% and 13%). Key factors allowing the first two districts to perform better were: strong district leadership and personal commitment to IMCI, which facilitated access to external funding and encouraged local-level policy adaptation; sensitization and training of district health managers; and lower staff turnover. However, IMCI training coverage remained well below target levels across all sites. The main barrier to expanding coverage was the cost of training due to its duration, the number of facilitators and its residential nature. Mechanisms for financing IMCI also restricted district capacity to raise funds. In Tanzania, districts could not spend more than 10% of their budgets on training. In Kenya, limited financial decentralization meant that district managers had to rely on donors for financial support. Critically, the low priority given to IMCI at national and international levels also limited the expansion of training. Levels of domestic and donor support for IMCI have diminished over time in favour of vertical programmes, partly due to the difficulty in monitoring and measuring the impact of an integrated intervention like IMCI. Alternative, lower cost methods of IMCI training need to be promoted, and greater advocacy for IMCI is needed both nationally and internationally.
Historically, health care in Zimbabwe was provided primarily to cater to colonial administrators and the expatriate, with separate care or second-provision made for Africans. There was no need for legislation to guarantee its provision to the settler community. To address the inequities in health that had existed prior to 1980, at independence, Zimbabwe adopted the concept of Equity in Health and Primary Health Care. Initially, this resulted in the narrowing of the gap between health provision in rural areas and urban areas. Over the years, however, there have been clear indications of growing inequities in health provision and health care as a result of mainly Economic Structural Adjustment Policies (ESAP), 1991–1995, and health policy changes. Infant and child mortality have been worsened by the impact of HIV/AIDS and reduced access to affordable essential health care. For example, life expectancy at birth was 56 in the 1980s, increased to 60 in 1990 and is now about 43. Morbidity (diseases) and mortality (death rates) trends in Zimbabwe show that the population is still affected by the traditional preventable diseases and conditions that include nutritional deficiencies, communicable diseases, pregnancy and childbirth conditions and the conditions of the new born. The deterioration of the Zimbabwean health services sector has also partially been due to increasing shortages of qualified personnel. The public sector has been operating with only 19 per cent staff since 2000. Many qualified and competent health workers left the country because of the unfavourable political environment. The health system in Zimbabwe has been operating under a legal and policy framework that in essence does not recognize the right to health. Neither the pre-independence constitution nor the Lancaster House constitution, which is the current Constitution of Zimbabwe, made specific provisions for the right to health. Progress made in the 1980s characterized by adequate financing of the health system and decentralized health management and equity of health services between urban and rural areas, which saw dramatic increases in child survival rates and life expectancy, was, unfortunately, not consolidated. As of 2000 per capita health financing stood at USD 8.55 as compared to USD 23.6, which had been recommended by the Commission of Review into the Health Sector in 1997. At the beginning of 2008 it had been dramatically further eroded and stood at only USD 0.19 leading to the collapse of the health system. Similarly, education in Zimbabwe, in addition to the changes it has undergone during the different periods since attainment of independence, also went through many phases during the colonial period. From 1962 up until 1980, the Rhodesia Front government catered more for the European child. Luckily, some mission schools that had been established earlier kept on expanding taking in African children who could proceed with secondary education (high school education). Inequity in education existed when the ZANU-PF government came into power in 1980. It took aggressive and positive steps to redress the inequalities that existed in the past. Unfortunately, the government did not come up with an education policy or philosophy in spite of massive expansion and investment. The government had cut its expenditure on education because of economic and political instability. This has happened particularly in rural areas, where teachers have left the teaching profession.
In Niger the decentralization of the education system and the implication of local communities in the management and financing of education services is the dominant logic of national education policy promoted by international donors. In the article I examine the mobilization of local actors in public education provision. I do this using an ethnographic study of the daily management of a newly established public primary school in peri-urban Niamey. The case study illustrates the diversity of actors, from traditional chiefs to district advisors and international development projects that are implicated in the provision of public education as well as the different logics and stakes at play. It is also revelatory of the limited room for manoeuvre of the ‘local community’ organized in school committees in ensuring the day-to-day functioning of the school. Finally it is argued that at the same time as education provision is in part taken over by local actors the idea of the state as the ideal provider of public education remains strong.
The purpose of this study is to explore what governance structures and leadership styles enhance community participation in school governance. The study specifically explored community participation and democratic leadership in improving school governance and management. Qualitative research approach was applied and twenty three (23) informants were interviewed for this study. The study sample comprises of Ministry of Education officials, School Management Committee (SMC) and Parent Teachers Association (PTA) members who represent the parents and the community, Head teachers, and teachers. Interviews, documents evidence, and general observation have been employed as a means of data collection methods. This use of interviews is to allow the informant express his or her views based on the subjective school of though. The data collected was analysed inductively. Educational decentralization is the common way through which community can participate in the governance and management of the schools in Sub-Saharan Africa. Governance and community participation, and organization theories which comprises of critical organization theory, bureaucratic theory, stakeholders theory, and Role theory form the bedrock of the study. The study reveals that the schools have formal structures (SMC and PTA) that promotes community participation in school governance, and that these formal structures are an expression of democratic governance that allow the community to participate in the governance and management of the school through democratic practices and democratic leadership that allows broader participation of the stakeholders in the governance and management of the school. The research findings reveal that community through the SMC and the PTA participate in the governance and management of the schools as the community is engaged in resources mobilization, planning, budgeting, school development, policy formulation, administration and financing of the school, but policies on the curriculum and exams is under the government and that the community is also limited with lacks training, and skills. As such the roles played by the community are underperformed and financed. The study concludes that community participation and democratic leadership enhance school governance and management, as educational providers are hold accountable by the community in this democratic school governance and management.
Health and education expenditures constitute some of the most important public services that governments provide. Their features are also particularly relevant for nations with multiple levels of government. The provision of health care and education services, and sometimes health insurance coverage for individuals, is typically entrusted to subnational governments. At the same time, as we have mentioned in earlier chapters, these services fulfill important national objectives. They contribute to redistributive objectives such as equality of opportunity and social insurance, and they also promote efficiency and growth in the national economy. The result is that, although the provision of health and education services are decentralized, the federal government maintains an interest in how they are delivered and engages in policies to influence that delivery. We devote this chapter to investigating in more detail some the issues that arise because of this shared responsibility. RESPONSIBILITY BY LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT In discussing the assignment of responsibilities for health care and education and the role of each level of government, it is important to distinguish between the provision of services and their financing. Provision of Health and Education Services Both health care and education represent services provided by hospitals, doctors, schools, teachers, and others directly to individuals. By necessity, the provision of these services is decentralized to local agencies or institutions.
A budget whether it is for a public institution or for a private profit oriented company, is a \nbasic and powerful tool in management and serves as a tool for planning and controlling \nthe use of scarce financial resources in the accomplishment of organizational goals. \nDespite this importance of budgeting, the implementation there-of and its suggested links \nto organizational structure, there has been little empirical exploration of how public \nsector budget implementation has developed within increasingly decentralized \nframeworks of governance. Most of the studies on budgeting mainly focus on the \npublicly listed firms sector and less on the non-listed sector. The study sought to \ndetermine the challenges of budget implementation at the Commission for Higher \nEducation in Kenya. \nThis study was a descriptive in nature done on a population consisting of 82 members of \nstaff at the Secretariat of the Commission for Higher Education. Self-administered \nquestionnaires were distributed to the sample drawn and descriptive analysis were \nemployed. Pie charts, tables, graphs were then used as appropriate to present the data The study found that the Commission faces several budget implementation challenges \nsuch as managers feeling insecure when following proscribed/restricted procedures, \ncorruption, lack of co-ordination, changing environmental needs, poor corporate \ngovernance structures, insufficient implementation capacities, delays in mobilizing \nexternal financing, overoptimistic implementation schedules and environmental hazards \nlike sudden change in regulations. The study hence recommends that the Commission \nshould overcome the challenges by studying the inflation trends since an increase in the \nsame leads to increase in cost and unexpected difficulties, conduct sufficient initial study so as to overcome the wide variance by conducting a monthly or quarterly review of \nfinancial implementation of the budget and the Commission to further identify budget \noverruns so that adequate countermeasures can be prepared
Corrupt Schools,Corrupt Universities is an investigative report on the school corruption in different areas and countries by International Institute for Educational Planning.It gives the new definition of school corruption,and especially details these behaviors in five fields where school corruption happens easily.These are decentralized financing,teacher management and behavior,contracting of non-wage expenditures,exams,credentials and accreditation and private tutoring.The report provides the experience of different countries in fighting these corruptions.It shows that school corruption is an international problem and its severity cannot be easily judged by different national power.There are many reasons for school corruption and we need to take systemic steps and call on the whole society to fight it.These international experiences are helpful for us to prevent and fight school corruption in our country.
Introduction In 1981, the Reagan administration in the US, the Thatcher administration in the UK, and their allies compelled the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Group (known as the “International Financial Institutions” [IFIs]) to launch an ideological assault against the state and promote a shift in power from the state to the market. From 1981 to the present, the IFIs have financed structural adjustment agreements (SAAs) in developing and transition countries to achieve that goal. Structural adjustment agreements call upon recipient governments to liberalize and privatize economies in the context of strict budget discipline. Adjustment lending facilitates economic integration – the hallmark of globalization – on terms that are advantageous to corporate and finance capital. The policy conditions associated with adjustment loans have accelerated transnational corporate penetration and expansion of markets in developing countries and lowered risks of portfolio investment and foreign direct investment. The role of the state has been reshaped to serve market liberalization, as governments have downsized, decentralized, and privatized (or “contracted out”) their functions. Such measures were intended to jump-start economic growth and free up resources for debt service. However, in most countries, public investment in critical areas (health care, education, infrastructure) foundered, growth rates were disappointing, and debts mounted to unsustainable levels (Pettifor 2001). This volume explores the relationship between adjustment and respect for human rights. Importantly, as governments in developing countries implemented World Bank and IMF-financed structural adjustment programs (SAPs), respect for human rights diminished.