Does fiscal decentralization improve people's access to health and education services in Cameroon?

Abstract We study the effects of fiscal decentralization on people's access to health and education services in Cameroon. It is generally believed that fiscal decentralization is an essential way to improve people's access to social services such as education and health. After reviewing the literature, we employed the Driscoll and Kraay estimate in a sample of 45 rural and urban municipalities for the period 2010–2020 to find our results. The results show that fiscal decentralization has a positive effect on the number of classrooms per pupil and the number of desks per pupil. At the same time, it negatively affects public hospitals per capita and the state of public hospitals. To improve people's access to education and health services in Cameroon, it is necessary to encourage the transfer of powers to municipalities. There is a need to control the actions of local officials to avoid mismanagement of resources that will not benefit the population. Also, the responsibility for selecting communal projects financed via the public investment budget within the framework of decentralization should be exclusively that of municipal executives, and not that of the central government.