Comparison of local governments in Hungary and Ethiopia

This paper aimed to compare Ethiopian and Hungarian local governments in terms of organizational autonomy, economic and financial autonomy, disposition autonomy, and administrative autonomy. When comparing the two countries, local governments in Ethiopia are not autonomous, particularly in the components listed above. On the other hand, local governments in Hungary are autonomous, and they make decisions independently and accept responsibility for them. Moreover, most legislative and planning decisions appear to be top-down, emanating from the national party or federal government and funneled down through regional government to the local level; most of these discretionary rights exist only on paper. Other duties and functions that woredas should perform can be specified in regional constitutions. The authors believe that Ethiopian local governments should be given special consideration in their decision-making process regarding the transfer of planning, financing, and management decisions for some public functions to the local government, including autonomous management of their administrative structures and resources. As a result, all of these lead local governments to be more creative and innovative, improve service delivery, and increase the government’s overall efficiency and effectiveness. Finally, in Hungary, local governments are more autonomous than in Ethiopia; therefore, the country has a lot to learn from the Hungarian local government system and structures.