Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations: Questions of Accountability and Autonomy - Governing the Nexus: Water, Soil and Waste Resources Considering Global Change - page 62

Fig. 1 Decentralization across the world. Note shades of the colour correspond to 0 12th,

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25 50th, 50 75th, 75 100th percentiles of index of decentralization. Source Ivanyna and Shah

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( 2014 : 21)

least decentralized continent, as can be seen in Fig. 1 . In the Asia-Paci c region,

several countries adopted decentralization measures in order to improve service
delivery to large populations. The trend is particularly strong in East Asia. In
transition countries, the decentralization process was part of the institutional
changes resulting from the collapse of the socialist economy. Finally, even
industrialized countries witnessed signi cant progress towards decentralization in

recent years.
These decentralization reforms had signi cant repercussions in sensitive areas

for citizen well-being, especially the poor, since subnational governments are
particularly important actors in areas such as education, health, housing and
community amenities and environmental protection. Subnational governments play
an important role in the management of environmental resources and in guaran-
teeing access to basic services, such as water and sanitation. The recent financial

and economic crisis, rapid urbanization and demographic changes, as well as
economic globalization and regional integration, represent additional challenges
that subnational governments have to face as key players on governing the nexus
approach to water, soil and waste.
In the water sector, increased dissatisfaction with national public monopolies
generated a trend towards decentralization that was particularly impressive in Latin
America (Foster 2005 ). Although most of the studies analyzing these reforms
conclude that the effects of decentralization were positive, some argue that it did not
result in a more ef cient and sustainable use of resources. 4 Regarding education,

most of the authors found positive effects of decentralization reforms on access to
education and education outcomes. For health services, evidence is mixed. A better
understanding of the causes of decentralization successes and greater capacity

4 For positive evidence, see Santos ( 1998 ), and Faguet ( 2008 ), among others. For negative effects
see Wilder and Lankao ( 2006 ), Asthana ( 2010 ), and V á squez and Franceschi ( 2013 ).