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Decentralization reforms have been undertaken around the world for about 45 years now, generating a significant body of literature. In this chapter, I will review a part of this literature and present some findings on the case of recent decentralization reforms at the regional level in Morocco. The chapter will emphasize the political economy drivers of decentralization reforms as the main explanations for the inconclusive evidence when it comes to local development. The chapter is structured as follows. This first section reviews the main definitions, typologies, drivers, promises and risk. The second section conceptualizes the links between decentralization and local development. The third section introduces the Moroccan case and reviews the main characteristics in terms of governance, finance and regional planning. It also highlights the relationship between decentralization and deconcentration reforms there and argues that the latter significantly constrains the former’s potential to make a positive impact in terms of local development. The fourth section concludes.

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English