New report: Participation, Decentralization and Human Rights

This report breaks new ground in the analysis of donor support to local governance. It does so by focusing on the potential added value of (human) rights-based approaches to decentralization and community participatory programs. The publication examines the theoretical and practical synergies between three intervention models that are currently being employed to improve local governance in developing countries: (i) democratic decentralization or devolution; (ii) community participation approaches, and; (iii) (human) rights-based approaches. The aim is to identify the possibilities and challenges of an ‘integrated approach’ to local governance that combines the strengths of each of the three intervention models. The report includes a number of case studies from Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The publication is an outcome of a desk-study carried as collaboration between DIIS and the Social Development Department, World Bank, and is written by Esbern Friis-Hansen og Helene Maria Kyed.