Publication: Subnational Data Requirements for Fiscal Decentralization : Case Studies from Central Eastern Europe
Date
2003
ISSN
Published
2003
Author(s)
Abstract
Poverty is an outcome of interaction
between economic, social, and political forces. The World
Bank has emphasized poverty reduction in its programs and
operational activities. With the launching of initiatives
such as the poverty reduction strategy papers and the
Comprehensive Development Framework, it has made
considerable progress in integrating antipoverty programs
into other lending operations. As mentioned in the World
Development Report 2000/2001, Attacking Poverty (World Bank
2001b), poverty has many dimensions. It is not defined only
by income, but also has political and sectoral (access to
services) dimensions. Today, in most countries subnational
governments are responsible for the delivery of services
that affect these dimensions of poverty. Because subnational
governments control increasingly higher shares of total
public resources, their competence in designing public
policies and delivering public services becomes crucial in
influencing the level of poverty. Indeed, the literature on
fiscal decentralization presents evidence that local
services, especially health and education, are highly
correlated with the incidence of poverty (Bird and Rodriguez
1999). In this context, the need for subnational
demographic, social, economic, and fiscal data is becoming
more evident at a time when subnational governments are
involved in national and global objectives of poverty
reduction. Statistical capacity building at the subnational
level aims to help statistical offices and subnational
governments produce the basic microdata necessary not only
for monitoring progress in poverty reduction, but also for
ex ante policy formulation by subnational governments.
Citation
“Yilmaz, Serdar; Hegedus, Jozsef; Bell, Michael E.. 2003. Subnational Data Requirements for Fiscal Decentralization : Case Studies from Central Eastern Europe. WBI Learning Resources;. © Washington, DC: World Bank. http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/1c977bf3-5367-5247-a08a-827bd688cab7 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”