An Assessment of the Impact of Local Government Fragmentation in Ghana

In theory fragmentation: yields lower per capita service cost; decentralizes service delivery; promotes local democracy; and protects identity and community of interest. This article assessed whether prediction matched the Ghanaian fragmentation evidence. The paper’s findings are: poverty reduction is a more important performance indicator than the overemphasis on efficiency in public provision; procedures and opportunities for participation are inadequate and irregular; attention is on public expenditure assignments without due consideration for significant financial devolution; and the consequences of the politics of fragmentation have been ignored. The paper concludes that unless these minutiae are incorporated into fragmentation policy, achieving predicted outcomes will remain difficult.