Suchergebnisse

The Russian system of federalism is in the midst of a difficult transition from a highly centralized to a more decentralized regime. It is a reasonable proposition that the final solution will somehow be a kind of assignment system, but it is unclear what path will have to be followed to reach that stated goal. The present system of revenue sharing is based on shared taxes and subventions. It is a two-tiered system, with the federal government laying down the rules for central–oblast sharing, and each oblast making the rules for the local governments within its jurisdiction. This paper updates a World Bank analysis of the revenue-sharing system in the Russian Federation, using actual data for 1992 and the most current tax-sharing rules and adds some empirical evidence to what is known about the intra-oblast dimension of revenue sharing.

THIS ARTICLE ADDRESSES THE ISSUE OF FISCAL DECENTRALIZATION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES, AND THE USE OF INTERGOVERNMENTAL TRANSFERS TO ACHIEVE THIS OBJECTIVE. THE AUTHORS FIND THAT DEVELOPING COUNTRIES HAVE MORE CENTRALIZED FISCAL STRUCTURES AND ARGUE THAT THIS IS CONSISTENT WITH THE THEORY OF FISCAL FEDERALISM. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, HOWEVER, DOES PUSH THE ADVANTAGE TOWARD DECENTRALIZATION. THEY ALSO SHOW THAT DEVELOPING COUNTRIES USE A WIDE VARIETY OF TRANSFER INSTRUMENTS TO FIND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS, AND THAT THESE INSTRUMENTS GIVE THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT VARYING DEGREES OF CONTROL OVER LOCAL GOVERNMENT FINANCES.

The objective of this paper is to investigate the extent of public expenditure decentralization among developing countries, and to identify its determinants. Using data compiled from international agency sources, and from primary sources, it is shown that fiscal decentralization has gone significantly farther in developed than in developing countries. The use of factor analysis and regression analysis indicates three general explanations for the wide variation in fiscal decentralization among countries. The public expenditure share of subnational governments appears to be greater where the level of economic development is higher, in countries with larger populations, and in countries whose central government budgets carry less of a defense burden. The results also suggest that where central governments mobilize more resources through the revenue system, the subnational government's share of expenditures may be lower—taxes are more likely to stick where they hit than to be passed through as grants to local governments.

In 2013, an estimated 2.8 million newborns died and 2.7 million were stillborn. A much greater number suffer from long term impairment associated with preterm birth, intrauterine growth restriction, congenital anomalies, and perinatal or infectious causes. With the approaching deadline for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2015, there was a need to set the new research priorities on newborns and stillbirth with a focus not only on survival but also on health, growth and development. We therefore carried out a systematic exercise to set newborn health research priorities for 2013-2025.We used adapted Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative (CHNRI) methods for this prioritization exercise. We identified and approached the 200 most productive researchers and 400 program experts, and 132 of them submitted research questions online. These were collated into a set of 205 research questions, sent for scoring to the 600 identified experts, and were assessed and scored by 91 experts.Nine out of top ten identified priorities were in the domain of research on improving delivery of known interventions, with simplified neonatal resuscitation program and clinical algorithms and improved skills of community health workers leading the list. The top 10 priorities in the domain of development were led by ideas on improved Kangaroo Mother Care at community level, how to improve the accuracy of diagnosis by community health workers, and perinatal audits. The 10 leading priorities for discovery research focused on stable surfactant with novel modes of administration for preterm babies, ability to diagnose fetal distress and novel tocolytic agents to delay or stop preterm labour.These findings will assist both donors and researchers in supporting and conducting research to close the knowledge gaps for reducing neonatal mortality, morbidity and long term impairment. WHO, SNL and other partners will work to generate interest among key national stakeholders, governments, NGOs, and research institutes in these priorities, while encouraging research funders to support them. We will track research funding, relevant requests for proposals and trial registers to monitor if the priorities identified by this exercise are being addressed.