Decentralization and Recentralization: Lessons from the Social Sectors in Mexico and Nicaragua

This study is designed to help practitioners prepare and evaluate institutional reforms for education and health programs. It provides an analytic framework for use by public officials and researchers, with case studies that illustrate a wide range of actual practice, and a set of lessons learned. The framework uses the concept of "accountability" to link the broad goals of reform to the key dimensions of organizational arrangements. The case studies, based on fieldwork in Mexico and Nicaragua, demonstrate a wide variety of available policy instruments.