Publication: Decentralization in Madagascar
Date
2004-06
ISSN
Published
2004-06
Author(s)
World Bank
Abstract
This paper takes stock of
Madagascar's first 10 years of decentralization. As it
happened in many other developing countries, particularly in
Africa, Madagascar's decentralization process has seen
reversals, uncertainties and lack of clarity all along. This
explains why Madagascar, despite the experience with
decentralization, remains a highly centralized country with
only about 3-4 percent of expenditures spent below the
center and with very few prerogatives decentralized to the
local level. Notwithstanding the structural impediments to
decentralization in poor countries, many positive lessons
can be drawn from the Madagascar case, which point to the
potentials of the decentralization process. This study
provides a detailed analysis of local government finances
and develops a methodology for measuring local financing
needs (local fiscal gap methodology). Based on this
analysis, the study argues that a lot can be gained from
simplifying administrative arrangements and fiscal
relationships. Instead of a full-blown and ambitious
decentralization strategy, this book suggests a number of
reforms, which would go a long way by making the current
structure work better. These reforms include: (1) a full
transfer of the (limited) local competencies to commune,
particularly local revenue collection; (2) increasing
transfers to rural communes so that per capita allocations
would be the same across communes-rural and urban; and (3)
assigning revenues to one level of government only, except
for some very specific types of taxes (such as on natural resources).
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank. 2004. Decentralization in Madagascar. World Bank Country Study;. © Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/14921 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”