Asya El-Meehy
Working at the interface of policy-making and academia, I bring applied advisory policy experience and scholarly expertise in the areas of social policy, remittances, conflict prevention, decentralization and governance in the Middle East. With nearly 15 years of field experience, I've served in several capacities at the United Nations including Governance Officer on Iraq, Chief of Technical Cooperation, as well as First Governance Officer on Syria at ESCWA. In these capacities, I led research projects, facilitated dialogues, advised governments, managed programs, and raised funds. Previously, I was a Visiting Research Scholar at UC Berkeley, Assistant Professor at Arizona State University, and a post-doctoral fellow at Wesleyan.
Supervisors: Richard Sandbrook and Dickson Eyoh
Supervisors: Richard Sandbrook and Dickson Eyoh
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the study critically analyses its record of reforms. It identifies two generations of reforms, one geared towards de-concentration (2008-2012) and another oriented towards delegation of powers, resources
and mandates (2013-). Using a comparative historical analytical framework and based on in-depth interviews with policymakers and stakeholders, the study inductively pinpoints the underlying legal institutional, economic, ideational and power dynamics that have hindered the implementation of reforms thus far. It puts forward policy recommendations aimed at shifting the policy-framing of decentralization, strengthening institutional arrangements for reforms, deepening links to the citizenry, moderating the system’s asymmetry and pursuing financial decentralization.
the study critically analyses its record of reforms. It identifies two generations of reforms, one geared towards de-concentration (2008-2012) and another oriented towards delegation of powers, resources
and mandates (2013-). Using a comparative historical analytical framework and based on in-depth interviews with policymakers and stakeholders, the study inductively pinpoints the underlying legal institutional, economic, ideational and power dynamics that have hindered the implementation of reforms thus far. It puts forward policy recommendations aimed at shifting the policy-framing of decentralization, strengthening institutional arrangements for reforms, deepening links to the citizenry, moderating the system’s asymmetry and pursuing financial decentralization.
in the north-west. As background to the mapping exercise, the report begins by analysing the officially prevailing local administration system in the country, including contradictions, gaps and challenges in the implementation of decentralization reforms enacted in the wake of the uprising, through Law 107. Our analysis shows that there
are significant gaps across the various de jure local governance models, on the one hand, and de facto local power dynamics, on the other hand. These can be attributed to the weak institutional development of local authorities, which not only lack resources and technical capacities but also compete with powerful parallel hierarchies. Findings from this baseline mapping demonstrate significant divergence in organizational
structures of local authorities, their autonomy, capacity to raise revenues, and prevailing centre-periphery relations. Nonetheless, they also highlight the following five shared local governance deficits: lack of democratic accountability, weak institutionalization of local council structures and restricted de facto powers, lack of technical capacities, community disengagement with ad hoc or sporadic horizontal
decentralization initiatives, and uneven decentralization on the administrative, fiscal and political fronts.