After decades of highly centralized and unitary political system and administrative setup,rnEthiopia has been following federal system of government and decentralization policy ofrnregional and local governance and democratization process immediately after the downfall ofrnthe military regime in 1991. The process of decentralization in Ethiopia has taken place in twornmajor phases. The first phase was decentralization from the central government to autonomousrnregions which was done at ones and referred to as the first wave of decentralization in Ethiopia,rnwhile the second phase was from regions to woredas and has not taken place at the same timernunlike the devolution from the central government to regions. But rather DLDP (or the secondrnwave of decentralization in Ethiopia) from regions to woredas took place in two major phasesrnbased probably on regions' level of development and political maturity; that is, relativelyrndeveloped four regions embarked the program first and then followed by the sO called emergingrnregions. DLDP in the Somali region has been probably the last of all regions and had it not thernpressure from the central government it would have not been implemented even to its currentrnlow level status.rnIn view of this, the study attempted to explore the objectives, driving forcers), design, processes,rnscope, legal and institutional frameworks and implementation status of the recently embarkedrnDLDP in the Somali region. Secondly, the study provided a modest preliminary investigation ofrnsome performance indicators of the program in terms of local governance processes,rncommunity participation and empowerment and basic service delivery with particular referencernto two woredas. Finally, the paper tried to unveil some of the major inherent and encounteredrnproblems, and the possible prospects of the program as well as contradictions of the basicrnrequirements of the program and the way of life of the most inhabitants of the region. To thisrnregard the study concluded that DLDP in the Somali has been embarked and implementedrnhastily in a big-bang, one-time event, project-like, top-down and uniform approaches withoutrnadequate policy, legal and institutional frameworks as well as with very limited participation andrnpreparedness of the stakeholders (woreda governments and the community) at local level. As arnresult of these, the program current implementation status is not doing well both in terms ofrngovernance and basic service delivery, and faces a bleak prospect of sustainability due tornabsence of broad societal consensus and participation during its inception and poor grassrootsrnsupport during its implementation.rnKey words: Decentralization, Devolution, Local governance, Good governance, Local Development,rnEmpowerment, Participation.