donors and lenders, particularly the World Bank. On the global scene, pressure for
decentralisation, especially market-based decentralisation, had already been brought to bear in developing countries as a result of the Structural Adjustment Programme of the International Monetary Fund in the 1980s and 1990s. Based on World Bank reports (1996, 1998), Cheema et al. (2003) argued that, although multilateral pressure for decentralisation in Pakistan had developed since the mid-1990s, no major attempts at decentralisation were initiated in Pakistan before General Musharraf took power in 1999. Therefore it can be said that the coup of 1999 was a turning point for local government reform, and that without the coup the course of dece Pakistan would have been further delayed.