Corruption, taxation and natural resource management in Tanzania

Democratic decentralisation of natural resource management requires careful attention to the distribution of power, devolved accountability and institutional design. However, even if all these elements are well crafted, failures in efficiency, equity and service delivery are possible because of the way institutions of government are lived out in the practice of day-to-day life. This paper presents a detailed account of the performance of local government in Tanzania. It demonstrates remarkable deficiencies in the workings of local government taxation and service delivery, despite the well structured, downwardly accountable nature of local government. It considers the implications of these failures for calls for community-based conservation, and the importance of good institutional design in effective decentralisation.