Health Economics Research: Dimensions Of Decentralization (Coursework Sample)

JESSE GITAU WANJOHI
K24S/18036/2014
KENYATTA UNIVERSITY
EAE 309
HEALTH ECONOMICS
Decentralization
Decentralization is the process through which power, functions, people, and things are dispersed or redistributed from a central position. It is has many similarities with democracy because it focuses a lot on equality among different organizations and functions. Kenya is a country that is familiar with the term decentralization. Many organizations and even the government have practiced decentralization. There are different dimensions of decentralization and a lot of arguments for and against decentralizations
Dimensions of decentralization
There are several dimensions of decentralization and they include; political, fiscal, market, and administrative decentralization. Political decentralization is the process through which the power of a state is redistributed to citizens and local leaders in order to give them more power in decision making. Like Kenya, decentralization is very effective because power is distributed from the president and top government officials to county representatives like MCAs, chiefs, senators and governors unlike in the old times where only MPs were the voice of people in the government.
Fiscal decentralization is a very critical type of decentralization because it determines the government and private sector. It involves how revenues are shared by both parties and the authorities to make decisions regarding expenditures of a country.
Administrative decentralization is the process through which redistribution of responsibilities, financial resources and authority is shared among the government or an organization. It aims at providing public services to different parties and how the power is redistributed to different dimensions helps one to know their role. There are three types of administrative decentralization, the deconcentration, delegations, and devolutions.
The market decentralization can also be referred to the economic decentralization. It can be described as the shifting of the responsibilities for different functions from the public to the private sector. They are categorized as privatization and deregulation. Privatization range in scope from leaving the provision of goods and services entirely to the free operation of the market to "public-private partnerships" in which government and the private sector cooperate to provide services or infrastructure. On the other hand, deregulation reduces the legal constraints on private participation in service provision or allows competition among private suppliers for services that in the past had been provided by the government or by regulated monopolies.
Reasons for and against decentralization
The main reasons for decentralization is because it has given the citizens power to say in decision Making process in Kenya. Before passing of the new constitution, the power was centrally placed and this made leaders exploit the power by grabbing of public lands and other resources. After passing the new constitution which favored the decentralization of power, it made it very difficult for the top leaders to exploit the resources of Kenya mostly land grabbing. The reason is because the citizens also have the power to say if something is wrong and not wrong. This has helped improve the economic growth in Kenya since leaders are challenged to rule at their best behaviors if they want to retain the positions that they have.
The other reason for decentralization is because there are problems that can be solved locally. Before decentralization in Kenya, if a problem maybe occurred in an area for example bad roads, it took ages before the decision reached and was able to be solved by the central government. But in the decentralized government, the central government gives county government funds and therefore, if a problem occurs, it can be solved very fast without many processes being involved.
Decentralization has brought into light practices like corruption before passing of the new constitution, the corruption levels were hardly known and many leaders were lucky. But after decentralization, corruption is easily detected and many leaders have been sacked for this reason.
On the other hand, there are arguments that are against decentralization. The first strong reason against decentralization is that the central government power will be weakened. This means that they will not be able to perform particular tasks which might have impacted greatly because they have to get a say form the citizens or local authorities. In Kenya, the presid...