Decentralization’s effects on education, health and agriculture outcomes, and on distribution: evidence from Ethiopia

Decentralization is meant to improve public services, but relatively few studies examine this question empirically. We explore the effects of decentralization on education, health and agriculture outcomes in Ethiopia using an original database covering allof the country’s woredas(i.e. local governments), which will itself eventually be an important contribution of this paper. Ethiopia is an interesting case study for two big reasons: (i) It is the fastest growing country in Africa and one of the 5 fastest-growing in the world; and (ii) Since decentralizing the country has made significant progress towards its MDGs and in reducing poverty. We show that decentralization improvednet enrolments in education, access to basic services in healthsuch as antenatal care, contraception, vaccinationrates, and deliveries by skilled birth attendants, and contributed to greater agricultural productivity in cereals, vegetables, enset, coffee and fruit