Fiscal decentralization provides the link between incentives for better performance of the local government and the elected support from the citizens and is, therefore, essential for an effective system of decentralization. The purpose of this note is to elucidate components of a well-designed...

Inspired by a private sector practice of conducting client satisfaction surveys, a small group of people in Bangalore2, concerned about the city' deteriorating standards of public services3, initiated an exercise in 1993 to collect feedback from users. User perceptions on the quality,...

Run by dictators for over 20 years (1964-1985), Brazil only had a democratic constitution promulgated in 1998 that allowed an already active civil society to function more freely. A country of 156 million, Brazil has been dubbed one of the most unequal, with one of the largest numbers of poor...

The state of Gujarat hosts almost a tenth of India's 80 million tribal people. Despite official rhetoric of significant investment in tribal development projects, results on the ground were questionable. This prompted DISHA (Development Initiatives for Social and Human Action) to get into the...

Following a dramatic drop in per capita GNP from US$ 1200 in early 1997 to US$ 680 in 1998, the Indonesian government began implementing social safety net (SSN) programs targeting the adversely affected - those who became poor after the crisis and everyone already living in poverty. These were...

Budget allocation alone can be a poor indicator of the quality and quantity of public service delivered on the frontline in countries with weak institutions. While shifting of budgetary resources to priority sectors is a good first step, it is crucial to ascertain where and how the allocated sum...

The public sector of most developing countries is often the target of numerous criticisms - lack of or no infrastructure, absenteeism of service providers like teachers and doctors, poor quality of services, corruption, non-transparency, favoritism, discrimination, etc. While several of these...