The concept of decentralisation has shaped development thinking in contemporary times in both developed and developing countries. Indeed, the demand for decentralisation is strong throughout the world because of its link to community development and improving the quality of life of mass of the people in the rural areas. Decentralisation is globally recognised as the way of ensuring community participation and local development. However, some authors argue that the purported benefits of decentralisation leading to community development are not as obvious as proponents of decentralisation suggest. In Africa, decentralisation is implemented in various forms by governments across the continent. Indeed, in West Africa, it is difficult to find a country that does not have decentralisation programme. In Ghana, decentralisation has been practiced since 1988 and the populace has come to embrace it as the best way of ensuring development and local participation in governance. Nevertheless, after nearly three decades of implementing decentralisation, which has generated rather elaborate structures and processes, Ghana still struggles to realise the expected developmental progress, or achieve the envisioned structural and procedural effectiveness. This paper explores the relationship between decentralisation and community development in Sekyere Central District. Again the paper seeks to find out the contributions decentralisation has brought to the communities in Sekyere Central District and finally investigate whether decentralisation is working as it should in the district. This paper was carried out using a mixed method approach. Purposive sampling technique was adopted to select all the assembly members in Sekyere Central District. Both primary and secondary data were collected from the relevant sources in an effort to meet the objectives of the study. The regression analysis of all the assembly members indicated that, the calculated value F is 28.25 at 5% alpha level of significant (0.000). It shows that there is significant relationship between decentralisation and community development.

Remember the Flicking Tail of the Lizard: how matauranga Maori is being woven into place-based regulatory decisions in Aotearoa. Te Mana Rauhï Taiao, the Environmental Protection Authority, is adopting a new and comprehensive approach to bringing mätauranga – the Mäori knowledge system – into its regulatory practice. This will potentially have an impact on decision-making on environmental protection in your local area.

Measuring Local Well-being: reflections on the Local Government (Community Well-Being) Amendment Bill. The Local Government (Community Well-being) Amendment Bill is designed to provide local authorities with greater legal freedom to make investments that will raise the well-being of their local community. The legislation is predicated on the assumption that people’s well-being is influenced by their local context. In order to identify the influence of changes in context generated by local investments, it is necessary to recognise that individuals differ in many ways and that the impact of any given investment can vary substantially from one person to the next. Indicators based on collections of individuals miss much of that variation. It is also necessary to recognise the variety of ways well-being can be measured. This short article raises both these issues by exploring three measures of well-being currently available on the 2018 Quality of Life survey.

This study examines the challenges that threaten one of Africa’s most ambitious experiments in political, administrative and fiscal decentralization. Based on extensive interviews with local government leaders throughout Uganda, the research uncovered a complex interplay of conflicts that impact decision-making effectiveness. The sources of these conflicts center around (a) the impact of national politics on local government as the country approaches the 2011 election, (b) the inability to meet rising citizen demand for services as the tax base of local governments continues to erode, (c) the corrosive impact of social conflicts stemming mostly from poverty and illiteracy complicated by tribal and ethnic differences, and (d) the challenges of developing honest and effective leadership in local government. Can Uganda unravel this web of conflicts to bring meaningful governance to this young nation? Indeed, many countries within the developing world are watching this experiment with a great deal of interest.

It is often claimed that decentralisation is effective for the reduction of poverty due to inherent opportunities for higher popular participation and increased efficiency in public service delivery. This paper is a qualitative assessment of the potential of the Ugandan decentralisation reform for poverty alleviation. The Ugandan government initiated an ambitious decentralisation reform in 1992, which represents an example of full-fledged devolution with the transfer of far-reaching responsibilities to local governments. However, several shortcomings, such as low levels of accountability, insufficient human and financial resources, corruption, patronage, and central resistance to decentralisation, constrain the proper implementation of the reform, putting improvements in participation and efficiency at risk and ultimately jeopardising the intended impact on poverty.