Ashraf Ghani

SAR Multisectoral Decentralization Group &

Decentralization or Good Governance:
Reframing the Debate

Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Room MC 10-850
12:30 – 2.00 pm

Speaker: Ashraf Ghani, Chancellor, Kabul University
Chair: Steen Jorgensen, Sector Director SDV
Discussants: Christine Wallich, Sr. Adviser, Governance and Accountability, SAR
Brian Levy, Adviser, PRMPS

Drawing on his recent work on state-effectiveness in Afghanistan, Sudan, Nepal and Lebanon, the speaker will re-examine the relationship between decentralization and good governance. When the earlier models of governance that emphasized the role of centralized states in delivering public goods and services were discredited, decentralization was put forward as an alternative model, perhaps more suited to developing countries with weak public institutions. Decentralization per se is, however, not a panacea. The critical elements of good governance are the balance of decision rights and accountability between central and sub-national levels of government, and the alignment of rules and implementation of rule of law, within the context of polycentric development.

Ashraf Ghani has a Ph.D. from Columbia University in international affairs and anthropology. He has taught at Kabul University, University of California, Berkley, and Johns Hopkins University. His academic research was on state-building and social transformations. He joined the World Bank in 1991, working in East and South Asia until 1996, and then on restructuring the Russian coal industry. After 9/11, he was Special Advisor to the UN and helped to prepare the Bonn Agreement, which led to the interim government in Afghanistan. In February 2002, he first became chief advisor to President Karzai, and then Finance Minister from July 2002 to December 2004. As Finance Minister, he set the path for Afghanistan's recovery through a series of extensive reforms, for which he was recognized as the best finance minister of Asia in 2003 by Emerging Markets. Currently Chancellor of Kabul University, he has resumed his research activities and is directing a program on state-effectiveness.

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