International Journal of Social Science Research (IJSSR)

Meaning, Expectation and Reality of Decentralization in Health Sector: A Theoretical Perspective

Nowadays, decentralization widely being perceived as the most critical ingredient for improved service delivery in health sector, which in turn essential not solely for attaining good health and well-being for the citizens, rather for national development in all regards. As is evidenced form the fact that today around more than 80 percent of the countries in the world adopted decentralized form of governance. Hence, decentralization became one of the most interested topics for the researchers worldwide, to work on. In this context, the present paper aims to analyse the meaning and forms of decentralization in health sector. It also seeks to examine the potential benefits and challenges of decentralization in health care. The study exclusively relies on secondary information articulated from the available sources like scholarly books, journal articles, and newspapers reports etc. It has been argued that the potential benefits of decentralization include improved infrastructure, greater community participation, and enhanced responsiveness in health sector, but the real impact of decentralization remains uneven, constrained by limited fiscal power, poor institutional capacity, elite capture, political and bureaucratic constraints.