The Program Decentralization strategies are being implemented throughout the world to improve economic efficiency, enhance citizen participation and increase government accountability. Countries are increasingly undertaking fiscal decentralization and seeking revenue enhancement to strengthen the role of regional and local governments. The Harvard Institute for International Development has combined both theory and practical international experience and expertise to offer this unique program on fiscal decentralization and financial management of regional and local governments. This comprehensive three-week program examines fiscal federalism, the roles of regional and local governments in the movement toward decentralization and more autonomous local government finance. Attention is focused on the legal, economic, and administrative dimensions of central-local financial relations.
Special emphasis is placed on revenue mobilization and the establishment of local revenue systems.
The program is designed to enable professionals to initiate policy and administrative reforms to improve local public finance and stimulate development. Public officials responsible for designing fiscal decentralization strategies, strengthening local government revenue systems, and enacting management changes need to understand the theory and practice of public finance and administration as applied to the special issues of local finance. This course provides the theory and practical applications of fiscal decentralization, resource mobilization, and the establishment of local revenue systems. Through a series of lectures, workshops and computer applications, this course focuses on analyzing policy and administrative issues related to the major revenue sources available to local governments. The study methods will be a combination of class lectures, case study presentations, discussion sessions, and field visits.