...exploring how people shape the world's forests

Local Governments and Rural Developments: Comparing Lessons from Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Peru

This book offers a systematic analysis of the ways in which different forms of decentralization affect the governance arrangements for rural development “on the ground” in Latin America. The authors’ comparative analysis suggests that rural development outcomes are systemically linked to locally negotiated institutional arrangements formal and informal between government officials, NGOs, and farmer groups that operate in the local sphere. They find that local-government actors contribute to public services that better assist the rural poor when local actors cooperate to develop their own institutional arrangements for participatory planning, horizontal learning, and the joint production of services.