Getting into the blackbox

After gaining independence from Britain in 1966, Botswana embarked upon efforts to tackle issues of underdevelopment through national development planning. Although development planning is centralized, some fiscal authority has been devolved to sub-national governments. Amongst other objectives, decentralization is meant to increase popular participation in development planning and improve the performance of sub-national governments. Given the amount of resources, fiscal and otherwise, that are being expended on decentralization, it is appropriate to ask, "does fiscal decentralization enhance popular participation and the performance of local government?" In other words, is the policy having the desired effect on critical outcomes? Employing a case study method and triangulating data collection methods, this book concludes that decentralization led to significant changes in popular participation and local government performance. However, serious challenges remain that derogate from the success of fiscal decentralization. Since these challenges are pathologies rather than essentials of decentralization, they are largely correctable.