George Owusu

Decentralization in Ghana: Policy, Practice and Performance George Owusu

This research investigated the extent to which the Decentralization Policy of Ghana which has been implemented since 1988 conforms to international best practice, the degree to which the policy lends itself to achieving its objectives and the extent to which the implementation has achieved policy objectives. The research has revealed that the policy falls short of best practice as prescribed by the World Bank and USAID and which has been implemented by other countries which have been successful in achieving the intent and objectives of decentralization and local governance . It has also been discovered that implementation deviates widely from the policies that are supposed to guide the practice. The analysis was done under the three main types of decentralization: Political, Administrative and Fiscal with recommendations for improvement given under each type of decentralization