The central hypothesis of this project is that decentralization and liberalization translate, with respect to the concerned actors, into a series of adjustments which go far beyond the distribution of roles as had been laid down in legislative texts or in the parliamentary debates that surrounded their adoption. An empirical study of the effective involvement, objectives, constraints and resources of the actors participating in various capacities in the supply and demand of collective goods and services is therefore necessary for identifying the respective roles played by these actors, and in particular, how each actor links the supply to the demand.

The concomitant methodological hypothesis is that the analysis of the decision making process is a major key to understanding the new urban governance, and to assessing its impact on the supply of services, particularly for the poor. Who really wields the decision making power, among the institutions who are present, but also within each one of these institutions? Under which constraints? How is consensus arrived at? Who decides upon the nature of concertation forums?

The secondary hypothesis is that the regional state has become the principal producer of urban policies, in spite of decentralization and thanks to liberalization. By decreasing the centralized regulation of the economy, liberalization has de facto created a space for regional political leaders, some of whom have put their capital-city at the centre of their strategy of economic development. Municipal authorities have not always been associated to these policies, and several facts converge to point at the preeminence of the state with respect to urban governance.