Towards a measure of local government performance in Ghana: Conceptual framework, data, and results

Daniel Chachu, Michael Danquah and Rachel M. Gisselquist

No wp-2025-26, WIDER Working Paper Series from World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER)

Abstract: In recent decades, decentralization reforms have surged across the Global South, aiming to bring governance closer to citizens. Despite extensive debate on their effectiveness, systematic methods to assess local government performance remain underexplored, particularly in data-constrained contexts like sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Inspired by Putnam et al. (1994), this paper proposes a conceptual framework to measure local government performance, applying it to Ghana—a stable democracy and a leader in decentralization reforms in SSA.

Keywords: Government performance; Local government; Subnational; Governance; Decentralization; Sub-Saharan Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr
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