Biblio

The rationale for the District level decentralization in Ethiopia has been reducing central and regional
government control, increasing community and civil society participation, making government bodies more
accountable, responsive and transparent to the constituents at the ground. This article explores and discusses how
district level decentralization affected its potential for effective local public governance in Guraghe Zone and its
Districts from local government bodies’ view. The study employed concurrent mixed methodes research design.
The,data were collected through survey questionnaires,focus group discussions, and key informant interviews,
simultaneosly. The Guraghe zone’s districts were taken purposively. The data were integrated with analysis and
interpretation of the results. The researcher employs cross tabulations, percentages, and graphs to discuss and
analyze the data. The results show that that the decentralization affects accountability, responsiveness and
transparency of local governments to the public positively and negatively in the study area. While, the finding
also revealed that effectiveness decentralization reform on local governance effectiveness has been constrained
due to misuses of transferred public resources. Furthermore, the prevailing ethnic based political patrons and
kinship networks are installing and implementing government policies and projects for their own interest than
the ordinary citizen. The findings also revealed that local administrators are appointed and removed from their
position without constituents’ knowledge. Even though both FDRE Constitution and SNNPRS Constitution
clearly publicized how lower level government units are accountable to the higher government tiers, both fail
state on how upper level tiers of government units are being accountable to the lower level government units.
This might affect the down ward accountability of governance actors to their constituents. Obviously, this
determines effectiveness of local governance.