Decentralization, Democracy and Human Rights: A Human Rights-based Analysis of the Impact of Local Democratic Reforms on Development

This article is situated at the intersection of the debates over the role of democracy in enhancing development and regarding human rights-based approaches to development. Decentralization acts as a lens through which the interaction of democratization, development, and human rights can be analysed in concrete local contexts. The analysis presented here, of the impact of decentralization in seven developing countries on local political participation and on the quality of enjoyment of education and health as economic and social rights, illustrates some of the limits of the democratization process, and the policy relevance of a rights-based approach to this process. By approaching decentralization as an eminently political process, I will attempt to gauge whether or not the process potentially contributes to addressing the limits of democratization, particularly as concerns problems of exclusion.