Decentralisation and Regionalisation in Portugal
What Reform Scenarios?
This report has been prepared by the OECD upon request by the Portuguese Independent Commission for Decentralisation. Decentralisation and regionalisation reforms have recently emerged on the Portugal’s policy agenda, with two main objectives: assigning more tasks to municipalities and strengthening regional level governance. The report presents a diagnosis of Portugal multi-level governance in international perspectives and highlights the strengths and challenges of the system. It then presents three potential policy paths of regional reform for Portugal. As the options are not mutually exclusive, they could work as complements to each other. The report analyses the conditions under which the reforms may deliver more economic efficiency and regional equity.
Why do countries decentralise?
This section provides a brief description of the main types of decentralisation. Both the key benefits and challenges of decentralisation are discussed. In addition, the chapter discusses the four main current trends in decentralisation: intermunicipal co-operation, metropolitan governance, regionalisation and asymmetric decentralisation. The chapter builds on both theoretical arguments and empirical observations concerning multilevel governance.
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