Definition Of Decentralization

For decades after World War II, the countries have sought to formulate, adopt and implement decentralization reforms for several common objectives (Cohen and Peterson, 1999). These objectives are generally designated in three periods through the time. First, in the transition to countries’ independence after World War II, the countries with many ethnic groups had trouble attaining political equity to countries, which are mostly, united some districts or regions including different several ethnic groups or religions and resolving the increase of demands on public goods and services are major reasons in favor of decentralization practices in 1960s. In this regard, most of the newly emerging independent countries adopted decentralization within

Meaning of Decentralization
The term "decentralization" enfolds a range of concepts which have to be carefully examined in any particular region before making a decision if projects or programs should support reorganization of financial, administrative, or service delivery systems (Decentralization Thematic Team, 2002). In addition, the term decentralization is used to cover a broad range of transfers of the "locus of decision making" from central governments to regional, municipal or local governments” (Sayer et al., 2005). On the other hand, it seeks to redistribute authority, responsibility and financial resources for providing public services among different levels of government. It is defined as “the transfer of responsibility for the planning, financing and management of certain public functions from the central government and its agencies to field units of government agencies, subordinate units or levels of government, semi-autonomous public authorities or corporations, or area-wide, regional or functional authorities or non-governmental or voluntary organizations (Rondinelli and Nellis, 1986). Another definition of decentralization is as a process thereby the relations of central and locals become restructured for a unitary country by the devolution from central to local units (Lyon,

It often involves some form of devolution—the transfer of responsibilities to Local governments that have been granted significant autonomy. In “democratic Decentralization” these local governments are accountable to local populations through Elections and/or other means.
In the context of international practice, the political decentralization aims to give citizens or their elected representatives more power. It may be associated with pluralistic politics and representative government, but it also means giving citizens, or their representatives, more influence in the formulation and implementation of laws and policies. Depending on the country, on the practice of the country, this may require constitutional or statutory reforms, the development of new political parties, increased power for legislatures, the creation of local political units and encouragement of advocacy groups (Rondinelli,