comparative assessment of decentralization in africa: ethiopia desk ...

powers of state legislatures found in certain other federations, including the ability to selectrepresentatives for the House of Federation, the upper chamber of the parliament that has someinfluence on patterns of fiscal decentralization. Woreda councils are assemblies that meet onceevery three months. The council has the authority of approving the woreda’s budget, and ofreviewing the work progress of the different sectors and executive members. The judicial systemis represented by the court and the executive branch is represented by the states and woredaadministrations.Deconcentration and delegation are perhaps less prominent in Ethiopia than in many Africancountries or cases of decentralization elsewhere in the developing world. Nonetheless,deconcentration may be seen in the zones (with the regional states—not the centralgovernment—doing the ―deconcentrating‖). The roles of the zones vary from state to state—withsome working on a deconcentrated approach where the regions confer specified responsibilitiesto the zones, and others working on a more bottom-up approach—but in each case they arepartially responsible for implementing regional initiatives.The relatively limited nature of deconcentration in Ethiopia is especially noteworthy in onesignificant area where SNGs have greater autonomy than most of their African counterparts:control over the civil service. While Watson and Yohannes (2005, p. 15) note that ―the civilservice is a federal institution,‖ it seems clear that civil servants employed by SNGs actuallyrespond to subnational units of government, not directly to national government. As noted byFessha and Kirkby (2008, p. 259), Ethiopia’s regions have a separate civil service from thenational civil service. This enables the regions to hire and fire personnel, including the largenumber of teachers each has under their purview. The full transfer of autonomy over personnelwas crucial for the substantial ―big push‖ fiscal decentralization that occurred in Ethiopia, asmany other countries decentralize expenditures, yet retain centralized patterns of control overnationally contracted civil servants.2.2 AUTONOMYSubnational autonomy can be judged by looking at political autonomy, fiscal autonomy, andadministrative autonomy. We begin with political autonomy. As the section on authority abovewould suggest, political power in Ethiopia is more decentralized than in most African countries.The lower chamber of the national parliament (the highest political organ), does not involveitself in regional and local affairs. The parliament is limited to legislating laws of nationalimportance and overseeing the national executives and national departments. Regional officialsare not expected to report to the national parliament. The HF, on the other hand, is established toaddress nationality issues. With its members from nations and nationalities, it can be regarded asa ―council of nationalities‖, and is composed of representatives of all ethnic groups. The HF hasa mandate to determine the allocation of intergovernmental transfer to different regions, withoutthe involvement of regional governments (though regional governments are consulted forpurposes of information). The allocation formula is ultimately approved by members of the HF.As indicated above, regional governments have fiscal authority, but the degree to which regionalgovernments (and woredas) have fiscal autonomy is more circumscribed. The distinction herecomes down to the sources of subnational revenues, and particularly that betweenintergovernmental transfers and own-source revenues that SNGs collect on their own tax bases.Fiscal decentralization in Ethiopia is substantial by African standards, if one takes into accountETHIOPIA DESK STUDY 11