Devolution or democratic decentralisation on its own is likely to fail. Democratic
authorities at lower levels in political systems will founder they lack meaning both financial resources and the administrative resources to
resources implement development projects (1999:7)
Hence democratic decentralisation must be both a process of power
authority and responsibility from a level of government and
higher to a lower administration, and one of sharing of authority and resources for collective goals. Administrative and political changes need to be supplemented by fiscal decentralisation, which encompasses revenue sharing between central and local governments and increased fiscal autonomy at subnational levels, as well as economic decentralisation that promotes market liberalisation, deregulation, privatisation public-private partnership arrangements (Cheema and Rondinelli Manor
together, these varying types of decentralisation hold out the promise of
sustainable outcomes
Figure 2.1 to capture many dimensions of democratic decentralisation
confirming that it is indeed a complex process. Irrespective of the overarching
scheme a government adopts whether political or administrati
a combination of many factors will influence the ultimate nature and extent of
discretionary decision-making at the local level. Figure 2.1 also highligh
the reality