New Directions in Social Policy: Decentralization and Social Innovations in Africa (Draft)

Social policy involves state and market, formal and informal as well as central and local institutions. This paper’s objective is to provide research-based evidence on the relationship between social policy and the continuing interactions between central and local institutions in Africa. The research is based primarily on desk research using secondary sources.

Decentralization and local government revitalization have been recurring themes of governance reforms in developing countries and constituted 40% of all public-sector reform programs between 1980 and 1999 (Grindle 2002). It is a reform issue in practically all African countries (Mawhood 1983, Olowu and Wunsch 2004, Dickovick and Wunsch 2014). From the early 1990s, most of the African countries, often with the support and assistance of donors or development partners from the rich world, have had specific.

At the time of his collaboration, Dele Olowu was a freelance consultant on governance and capacity development and oversees the network of Redeemed Christian Church of God churches in the Netherlands and the rest of mainland Europe.