The Role of Decentralization in Promoting Good Governance in Ethiopia: The Case of Wolaita and Dawuro Zones

Abstract

Decentralization is widely recognized to improve sustainable development through promoting good governance. However, like many African countries, Ethiopia has faced a number of challenges in good governance building process. Thus, this research focuses on assessing the role of decentralization in promoting good governance in Wolaita and Dawuro Zones. The study employed descriptive research design to describe the practices of decentralization and its role in promoting good governance. Both primary and secondary data were used. The primary data was collected through questionnaire and interview while secondary data was collected by conducting extensive desk review from published and unpublished documents like journals, articles, books, reports, etc. To realize the objective of the study 400 employees were selected from 12 selected public sectors of Wolaita and Dawuro zone using simple random sampling techniques. The collected data were analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative method of data analysis. The finding of the study shows that the practice of political and administrative decentralization was good. But fiscal decentralization was lowly practiced and remains the problem in promoting good governance. This was mainly because power of rising and controlling own revenue, extent of expenditure planning and financing, revenue transfer ratio, autonomy to borrow fund, financial management capacities of local governments were low in Wolaita and Dawuro zones. Therefore, the government should pay attention to fiscal decentralization by encouraging local governments to have enough fiscal control and capacity to plan their activities in most effective and efficient manner.

Keywords: Decentralization, Good Governance, Political decentralization, Administrative decentralization, Fiscal decentralization