IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/devpol/v32y2014is1ps3-s17.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Urban Governance and Service Delivery in African Cities: The Role of Politics and Policies

Author

Listed:
  • Danielle Resnick

Abstract

type="main"> This is an introduction to a special issue sponsored by UNU-WIDER focusing on key governance challenges related to addressing gaps in urban service delivery in sub-Saharan Africa. First, due to decentralisation policies in much of Africa, the provision of services is often transferred to sub-national authorities. But complex layers of administration and high levels of poverty deprive local governments of adequate resources. Secondly, opposition parties now control a number of African cities, a situation known as ‘vertically-divided authority’. Consequently, central governments do not always have an incentive to help municipal governments improve their performance. Case studies of Senegal, South Africa and Uganda highlight how and when such dynamics become problematic for the delivery of urban services, and offer important implications for the donor community.

Suggested Citation

  • Danielle Resnick, 2014. "Urban Governance and Service Delivery in African Cities: The Role of Politics and Policies," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 32(s1), pages 3-17, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:devpol:v:32:y:2014:i:s1:p:s3-s17
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/dpr.12066
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Samuels, David, 2004. "Presidentialism and Accountability for the Economy in Comparative Perspective," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 98(3), pages 425-436, August.
    2. Ehtisham Ahmad & Giorgio Brosio, 2009. "Does Decentralization Enhance Service Delivery and Poverty Reduction?," Chapters, in: Ehtisham Ahmad & Giorgio Brosio (ed.), Does Decentralization Enhance Service Delivery and Poverty Reduction?, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Charles M. Tiebout, 1956. "A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64, pages 416-416.
    4. Falleti, Tulia G., 2005. "A Sequential Theory of Decentralization: Latin American Cases in Comparative Perspective," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 99(3), pages 327-346, August.
    5. AbdouMaliq Simone, 2006. "Pirate Towns: Reworking Social and Symbolic Infrastructures in Johannesburg and Douala," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 43(2), pages 357-370, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rushil Ranchod, 2020. "The data-technology nexus in South African secondary cities: The challenges to smart governance," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(16), pages 3281-3298, December.
    2. Masaki, Takaaki, 2018. "The impact of intergovernmental transfers on local revenue generation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from Tanzania," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 173-186.
    3. Takaaki Masaki, 2016. "The impact of intergovernmental transfers on local revenue generation in Africa: Evidence from Tanzania," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2016-113, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    4. Takaaki Masaki, 2016. "The impact of intergovernmental transfers on local revenue generation in Africa: Evidence from Tanzania," WIDER Working Paper Series 113, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    5. Ezra Berkhout & Lucie Sovová & Anne Sonneveld, 2023. "The Role of Urban–Rural Connections in Building Food System Resilience," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-22, January.
    6. Peter Richards & Tom Reardon & David Tschirley & Thom Jayne & Jim Oehmke & David Atwood, 2016. "Cities and the future of agriculture and food security: a policy and programmatic roundtable," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 8(4), pages 871-877, August.
    7. Ogunniyi, A. & Mavrotas, G. & Olagunju, K. & Fadare, O. & Rufai, A.M., 2018. "The Paradigm of Governance Quality, Migration and its Implication on Food and Nutritional Security in Sub- Saharan Africa: What does Dynamic Generalized Method of Moments estimation reveal?," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 275994, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    8. Kurt Sartorius & Benn Sartorius, 2016. "Service delivery inequality in South African municipal areas: A new way to account for inter-jurisdictional differences," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(15), pages 3336-3355, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Marius Constantin PROFIROIU & Septimiu Rares SZABO, 2016. "Outsourcing vs decentralisation: A comparative analysis in Central and Eastern Europe," Eco-Economics Review, Ecological University of Bucharest, Economics Faculty and Ecology and Environmental Protection Faculty, vol. 2(2), pages 3-26, December.
    2. Leonardo Letelier S. & Héctor Ormeño, 2018. "El mapa de la descentralización fiscal en Chile," Journal Economía Chilena (The Chilean Economy), Central Bank of Chile, vol. 21(3), pages 004-040, December.
    3. Brinkerhoff, Derick W. & Johnson, Ronald W., 2009. "Decentralized Local Governance In Fragile States: Learning From Iraq," MPRA Paper 21505, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Kendall D. Funk & Erica Owen, 2020. "Consequences of an Anti‐Corruption Experiment for Local Government Performance in Brazil," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(2), pages 444-468, March.
    5. Axel Dreher & Kai Gehring & Christos Kotsogiannis & Silvia Marchesi, 2018. "Information transmission within federal fiscal architectures: theory and evidence," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 70(1), pages 243-265.
    6. Qing Miao & Yu Shi & Meri Davlasheridze, 2021. "Fiscal Decentralization and Natural Disaster Mitigation: Evidence from the United States," Public Budgeting & Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(1), pages 26-50, March.
    7. Kosec, Katrina & Song, Jie & Zhao, Hongdi, 2021. "Bringing Power to the People or the Well-Connected? Evidence from Ethiopia on the Gendered Effects of Decentralizing Service Delivery," 2021 Conference, August 17-31, 2021, Virtual 315258, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    8. Achakorn Wongpredee & Tatchalerm Sudhipongpracha, 2014. "The Politics of Intergovernmental Transfers in Northeast Thailand," Journal of Developing Societies, , vol. 30(3), pages 343-363, September.
    9. Rachmat Hidayat, 2017. "Political Devolution," SAGE Open, , vol. 7(1), pages 21582440166, March.
    10. Aisling Lyon, 2014. "Challenges to Municipal Fiscal Autonomy in Macedonia," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 44(4), pages 633-658.
    11. Mark Partridge & M. Rose Olfert & Alessandro Alasia, 2007. "Canadian cities as regional engines of growth: agglomeration and amenities," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 40(1), pages 39-68, February.
    12. Salih Ozgur SARICA, 2014. "Regional Economic Growth. Socio-Economic Disparities among Counties," Journal of Economic Development, Environment and People, Alliance of Central-Eastern European Universities, vol. 3(4), pages 25-36, December.
    13. Chin Lim, 2003. "Public Good Contributions Between Communities," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 5(3), pages 541-548, July.
    14. Koichi Fukumura & Atsushi Yamagishi, 2020. "Minimum wage competition," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 27(6), pages 1557-1581, December.
    15. Septimiu-Rares SZABO, 2017. "The Empirical Relationship Between Fiscal Decentralization And Economic Growth: A Review Of Variables, Models And Results," Management Research and Practice, Research Centre in Public Administration and Public Services, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 9(2), pages 47-66, June.
    16. Kessing, Sebastian G. & Konrad, Kai A. & Kotsogiannis, Christos, 2006. "Federal tax autonomy and the limits of cooperation," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 317-329, March.
    17. Dwight Lee, 1985. "Reverse revenue sharing: A modest proposal," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 45(3), pages 279-289, January.
    18. Annie Tubadji & Peter Nijkamp, 2015. "Cultural impact on regional development: application of a PLS-PM model to Greece," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 54(3), pages 687-720, May.
    19. Barrow, Lisa & Rouse, Cecilia Elena, 2004. "Using market valuation to assess public school spending," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 1747-1769, August.
    20. Frimpong Boamah, Emmanuel, 2018. "Constitutional economics of Ghana’s decentralization," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 256-267.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:devpol:v:32:y:2014:i:s1:p:s3-s17. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/odioruk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.