District-level Decentralization

The long-term objective of the decentralisation sub-programme is to transform rural woredas by deepening the devolution of power to lower tiers of regional governments, institutionalising decision-making processes at the grass-roots level with a view to enhancing democratic participation, promote good governance, Improve service delivery and contribute to sustainable development and poverty reduction.

The immediate objective of decentralisation is to speed up capacity building in 433 woredas of four regional states, and to take preliminary measures for building capacity in 70 woredas of five regional states, namely, Afar, Benshangul-Gumz, Gambela, Harari and Somali. Implementation is divided into two phases of two and three years each. The first phase comprises initial intervention in the four regional states followed by five regional states. Intervention during the second phase includes the expansion and consolidation of 50 per cent of woredas in all regional states. The first phase includes the creation of an enabling environment in 433 woredas of the four regional states with the following specific objectives.

• Create a conducive environment for empowerment and democratic participation by communities at the grass-roots level.\
• Strengthen institutional/organisational arrangements and accountability and good governance by establishing and refining functional assignments.
• Establish the legal basis to avoid duplications between regions and woredas, structure and restructure public bodies for efficient service delivery across all rural woredas.
• Establish effective and efficient working systems for planning and plan execution.
• Ensure the availability of skilled personnel for planning, plan implementation, administration and management.
• Improve monitoring and tracking of development activities and woredas' own rules and develop guidelines on  minimum standard service performance mechanism and benchmarks. 
• Strengthen district-level decentralisation by facilitating efficient and effective implementation and streamlining regional decentralisation strategies, building capacity for co-ordination, execution and linkages, monitoring and evaluation.
• Design improved region/woreda block grant formula and implement revenue sharing and own revenue enhancement mechanisms.
• Introduce multi-year local planning and fiscal framework mechanism, improve donor integration in local development, strengthen financial rules, reviews, reporting systems, etc.
• Upgrade professional and leadership competence by launching short-term training, developing human resources at rural woredas.
• Provide office equipment and create a conducive working environment at rural woreda levels.