Decentralization and Service Delivery in Somaliland

ABSTRACT The study is about Decentralization and service delivery Somaliland, The study examined the relationship between Decentralization and service delivery in Somaliland. The specific objectives of the study were to clarify the impact of decentralization on service deh’~ery in Somaliland, evaluate whether the elected local councilors are serving to the Public better than the previous nominated District commissioner, and the third objective was to identify whether local councilors are really accountable to the Public. The study used correlational research design on a population of the capital city of Somaliland, Hargeisa, the study has stratified the city of Hargeisa in to five different districts and selected two of these three districts, and then the study has randomly selected 160 respondents, in addition to that the study has purposively selected 14 local councilors and 10 university professors. The study has used both questionnaires and interviews for data collection. The data collected was analyzed using SPSS by using cross tabulation, frequencies and correlations analyses. The study found out that decentralization has resulted better services to the public, and that local councilors are performing better than the single mayors nominated by the central government of Somaliland, in addition to that the study has identified that majority of the local councilors need capacity building and extensive training to effectively perform their duties. Furthermore, the study found out that local councilors are not accountable to the public, and that there is lack of communications channels between councilors and people, therefore in order to realize effective decentralization, the study has recommended that voters should base their votes by merit rather than tribalism and kinship, and that local councilors need to merge with private organizations and civil society and privatize some of their responsibilities.