the process of delegating authority and assigning responsibilities for service provision away from the central governance structures to more-local authorities institutions or structures. An example of decentralization is the restructuring of government institutions to devolve more decision-making and service-delivery responsibilities to local levels.

Decentralization is linked also to the concept of local self-determination; whereas, all rights and responsibilities devolve to the local community or population unit. That entails the authority to legislate (pass ordinances) and levy taxes for local purposes that serve the local service-provision democratically required by the local community.

In no sense does decentralization imply absolving the central state of its obligations to respect, protect and fulfill human rights, including the right to development, by implementing the seven over-riding ICESCR principles of implementation for states parties, including the prohibition against discrimination on any geographic or other arbitrary basis. Nor does it absolve any local authority from human rights obligations borne by the treaty-bound central state, of which it is part.