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Immediately upon controlling the reigns of power, the EPRDF government has brought substantial transformation in political, socio-economic and institutional arrangement of the Ethiopian state. As a result, the current government embarked on the process of decentralization with the aim of changing the form of state from unitary to federal states. The Harari Peoples National Regional State (HPNRS), who used to have an independent Emirate and center of Islam in the Horn for three centuries, have a unique regional government structure i.e. bicameral as well as unique electoral system unlike other regional state. This book, therefore, examines the contribution of effective decentralization policy in building regional and local institutions in the HPNRS for the last decade. It looks for establishing whether enough political, administrative, fiscal and human resource management powers have been devolved and if not outlines the challenges to the procedure. The analysis should help to give fresh insights on this cross-cutting and interlinked issues of decentralization and institution-building, and should be especially beneficial to professionals in the fields of social science.

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Abdulhamid Abubeker (Gerado), MA: Studied Regional and Local Development Studies at Addis Ababa University. Trainee Diplomat at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Email: garado4@yahoo.com

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