Tanzania has embarked on several radical measures to restructure its economy and governance structures, including local governments. For more than four decades, Tanzania has been striving relentlessly for effective decentralisation measures, yet the progress has been slow. The country has passed through several phases of decentralisation, with each phase inheriting some criticised characteristics that have been difficult to dismantle in the successive phases. For example, previously recognised mistakes have continued to block any attempts to diverge from the direction set by the Ujamaa policies. It is argued here that various attempts at decentralisation by the central government since the 1960s in Tanzania have fallen short of the government’s intentions to establish effective local governance. This being the case, two important questions prevail: Why has Tanzania made little progress towards effective decentralisation, despite various attempts to devolve powers from the centre? Why has Tanzania not fully decentralised, as echoed in the policy paper on Decentralisation-by-Devolution (D-by-D)? There have been a number of explanations for this retardation along the path to decentralisation. This article reflects upon the tenability of path dependency theory which posits that the longer an institution has been in place, the more resilient it is to change.

This paper explores decentralisation’s contribution to post-conflict state building in four Commonwealth countries: UK (Northern Ireland), Sri Lanka, Sierra Leone and Rwanda. Drawing on insights from senior local government officials, it explores post-conflict institutional arrangements and finds that decentralisation policy has made a significant, if varied, contribution to community cohesion, reconciliation and state legitimacy in each country. In Northern Ireland and to a lesser extent Sri Lanka, quasi-federal structures have enabled peace negotiations through greater autonomy and state legitimacy in the eyes of former separatists. This has however limited further devolution to sub-provincial local councils. In Sierra Leone and Rwanda, decentralisation has had a more developmental rationale. Greater equity in basic local service provision and more inclusive local governance has supported community cohesion and reconciliation in all four countries, though there are capacity gaps and coordination issues with central government agencies. There is evidence decentralisation has contributed to peace in all four countries although in Rwanda the restriction on pluralism has limited local government flexibility to address community needs. The case studies offer key lessons and signpost continuing challenges, which may help other governments to consider what features of decentralisation may work best for their post-conflict political settlement and the sociocultural dynamics of the communities they serve.

In recent years many countries across the world, especially in Africa, have created large numbers of new local administrative units. This trend has largely gone unnoticed in the scholarly community, with no attempts to understand the underlying processes at work. To examine this phenomenon I take the case study of Uganda, one of the more prominent ‘donor darlings’ of the 1990s. Alongside large-scale economic and political reforms Uganda has also experienced a near explosion in the number of districts (the highest level of local government), going from 39 to 79 in less than a decade. I examine six potential reasons why these districts might have been created, and argue, through the use of election results, interviews and other data, that district creation has been primarily a source of patronage in the ongoing need for Museveni to win elections. I conclude with reflections on the relationship between economic and political reforms and patronage in the developing world.

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.

Decentralization - an essential pillar of institutional reform - is of critical importance in developing countries, particularly in regard to democratization, effective development, and good governance. Uganda, since 1986 and the start of decentralization measures under Yoweri Museveni and the National Resistance Movement, has represented one of the most serious commitments in Sub-Saharan Africa. With the benefit of extensive fieldwork, Fumihiko Saito demonstrates how conflict resolution, information dissemination, and encouragement of the many and varied stakeholders to form partnerships are critical to successfully bringing services "closer to the people. Decentralization and Development Partnerships: Lessons from Uganda goes beyond theory to compare academic assumptions to the reality of decentralization implementation in modern Uganda. Although the process is by no means free of difficulties, Saito concludes that a "win-win" outcome is a real possibility.