Decentralisation and Poverty Alleviation in Zambia: Achievable Goal or Deceptive Promise?

Since the 1990s, decentralisation has acquired increasing popularity among governments and aid agencies. Today, it is hard to find a country that has not undergone the reform of its local government system. Since 2000, decentralisation has been heavily promoted by donors as an important tool to tackle extreme poverty and promote development. Despite this popularity, the pro-poor effects of decentralisation are not supported by unarguable evidence and the literature available offers, at best, a mixed picture. This study tries to contribute at filling this gap, using as case study a country, Zambia, which has been almost neglected by the literature on decentralisation.