GENERAL SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY

CONCEPTS AND TOOLS

                        

Karen Sirker
World Bank Institute
ksirker@worldbank.org
October 4, 2006
WHAT IS ACCOUNTABILITY?

The obligation of power-holders to account for

or take responsibility for their actions in both their
conduct (by obeying the rules and not abuse their
power) and their performance (by serving the
public interest in an efficient, effective, and fair
manner)

“Power-holders” are those who hold political,

financial or other forms of power

Two Key Areas of Traditional Accountability:

 Government Accountability
 Corporate Accountability
 TRADITIONAL MEASURES TO ENFORCE
ACCOUNTABILITY

 Rules and Regulations

administrative procedures, audits

 Bring in Market Principles

privatization or contracting to private sector and NGOs

 Independent Agencies
ombudsman, vigilance commissions,
 WHAT IS SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY?

‘An approach towards building accountability

that relies on civic engagement, i.e., in which
ordinary citizens and/or civil society
organizations participate directly or indirectly in
exacting accountability.’ It can be initiated by
government, the private sector or civil society
actors

Varying degrees of success so far.

Most often success depends on Direct Participation of the People
 SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISMS

 Refer to the range of actions, tools and mechanisms that

citizens, communities, civil society organizations, government agencies,
private sector and the independent media can use to hold public
authorities and other power holders accountable for their decisions,
conduct, performance and actions.

 They include: participatory budgeting, public expenditure tracking,

citizen monitoring of public service delivery, citizen advisory boards,
social audits, lobbying and advocacy campaigns

 They are hence demand-driven or bottom up.

 Also sometimes referred to as “external” or “vertical” mechanisms of

accountability.
WHY IS SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY
IMPORTANT

Social
Accountabilit
y

Good Empowerment
Governance

Development
Effectiveness
 WHAT HAS GONE WRONG?
If Good Governance is classified as being participatory, transparent,
accountable, effective, compliant with the rule of law, and responsive to
the needs of the people, then what has gone wrong?

THE GOVERNANCE CRISIS

 Poor Access to Public Services
Inefficiency

 Indifference, Collusion with Vested Groups

Non Responsiveness

 Rampant Corruption, Extortion by Agents & Middlemen

Weak Accountability
 Loose Systems & Weak Integrity
Abuse of discretion
 THE SERVICE DELIVERY PROBLEM

 Services do not benefit the poorest

 Resources not delivering results
 Increasing resources is not the only solution

Urgent Need to Improve the Efficiency and

Effectiveness of Public Expenditure
 POSSIBLE ROOTS OF PROBLEM

 Budget Allocation Problem

Governments spend on the wrong goods and people
 Expenditure Tracking Problem
Resources fail to reach service providers or users
 Problem of Monitoring/Accountability
Weak incentives for effective service delivery
 Problem of Participation/Awareness
Demand-side constraints
HOW TO MAKE A CHANGE?
 From Coping to ‘VOICES’ by Citizens

 From ‘Shouting’ to ‘Counting’ - quantify voice and

feedback
 From Reaction to Informed Action
 From Episodic to Organized Action
 From Confrontational to “Win-Win”
situations
 PARTICIPATORY PUBLIC EXPENDITURE
MANAGEMENT
4 STAGE PROCESS
 Budget Formulation
How public resources are allocated
Each of
 Budget Review
these stages
Diagnosing the implications of the budget
can be (and
when formed usually are)
 Expenditure Tracking carried out in
Seeing where the money goes a non-
 Performance Monitoring participatory
Even after the money is spent, see how the manner. That
output/service is performing is not PPEM.
 PARTICIPATORY PUBLIC EXPENDITURE
MANAGEMENT
Budget Formulation

AFB-Canada;
AFB-Canada;Porto
Porto
Alegre,
Alegre,Brazil
Brazil

Karnataka,
Karnataka, Budget
Performance India/Filipino
DISHA, India;
DISHA, India;
India/Filipino Gender
GenderBudget
BudgetProj.
Proj. Analysis
Monitoring Report
ReportCard
Card S.S.Africa
Africa

CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
PETS-Uganda, P-
PETS-Uganda, P-
Watch-Phil.
Watch-Phil.

Budget
Expenditure
Tracking
Facilitates the institutionalization of social accountability mechanisms
in the decision-making of public institutions and policy, and leads to
more sustainable poverty reduction outcomes.
 PARTICIPATORY PUBLIC EXPENDITURE
MANAGEMENT

PARTICIPATORY APPROACHES INCLUDE:

 Budget consultations
 Public Expenditure Tracking Surveys
 Tax and Expenditure Analysis by CSOs/Think Tanks
 Public Budget Hearings and Social Audit
 Community Performance Monitoring of Public Agencies
 Citizen Report Cards and
 Community Scorecards
 Advocacy Campaigns
 Right to Information Movements and Research
 Citizen Juries and Monitoring Communities
What is Budget Formulation?
 Participatory Budgeting (PB) is an innovative mechanism which aims
to involve citizens in the decision-making process of public budgeting.
 It creates a channel for citizens to give voice to their priorities and is
instrumental in making the allocation of public resources more
inclusive and equitable.
 By promoting public access to revenue and expenditure information,
PB effectively increases transparency in fiscal policy and public
expenditure management, reducing scope for clientelistic practices,
elite capture, and corruption, thereby enhancing the government's
credibility and the citizens' trust.
 PB can also improve service delivery by linking needs identification,
investment planning, tax systems and project management.
 PB goes beyond a simple participatory exercise to being an integrated
methodology for promoting social learning, active citizenship and
social accountability, opening new ways of direct participation which
complements traditional forms of representative governance.
Participatory Municipal Budgeting
in Porte Alegre, Brazil

 Creates regional assemblies and participatory

budget councils that participate in allocating
resources and monitoring how they are used.
 Each council is composed of delegates elected from
municipal councils, neighborhood associations and
local government
 The councils are responsible for organizing
consultation meetings, representing district priorities
to the municipal governments and – in collaboration
with government representatives – formulating and
monitoring local budgets.
Budget Formulation in Porte
Alegre: The Results

 Between 1889 and 1996

 Number of households with access to water services rose
from 80% to 98%
 Number of children in public schools doubled
 Tax revenue increased by nearly 50% because greater
transparency encouraged payment of taxes
 Participatory budgeting has helped to balance
earnings and expenditures
 Over 80 Brazilian cities are now following the Porto
Alegre model and currently being applied to the
state level, covering about 500 municipalities
 What is Budget Review and
Analysis?

Conventionally, the budget is wrapped around technical jargon and large numbers, is
inaccessible to common people. Independent budget review and analysis is a process
where a wide range of stakeholders research, unpack, monitor and disseminate
information about public expenditure and investments.

Why? To assess whether allocations match the government's announced social

commitments. This may involve analyzing the impact and implications of budget
allocations, demystifying the technical content of the budget, raising awareness about
budget-related issues and undertaking public education campaigns to improve budget
literacy.

The Approach
Although no ready formula exists, in general the key phases of this process are:
 Demystify: Unpacking and making sense of the budget allows people to contest official
figures and policies.

 Advocacy: Expressing the budget and any proposed alternate budget in lay persons
terms allows a wide range of stakeholders to get involved in a dialogue process around
the budget (which is usually in the control of a small number of technocrats).

 Lobbying: Organizing social coalitions and alliances harness the energies of various
groups to support budget review and analysis.
Participatory Budget Analysis
in Gujurat, India – The Case

 Government of India promised to

allocate money for social program for
tribal groups in the Gujurat.
 On close inspection of the budget,
money was not included
Participatory Budget Analysis
in Gujurat, India: The Results
 Allocation and release of funds to priority sectors has
improved
 Numeric discrepancies and other errors (around 600 in the
first year) are picked up by members of the legislature.
 Media has publicized results.
 There is a better flow of information among ministries.
 Gujurat model is being replicated in 12 other Indian states.
 National budget is now analyzed by the People’s Budget
Information and Analysis Service (An NGO where budgets of all
departments of State as well as Federal Government of India are
analyzed, especially in terms of provisions and commitment made
towards poor and backward, vis a vis policy priorities of the
government.)
What is Participatory Public
Expenditure Tracking?

It involves citizen groups tracking how the government actually

spends funds, with the aim of identifying leakages and/or
bottlenecks in the flow of financial resources or inputs.
Typically, these groups employ the actual users or
beneficiaries of government services (assisted by Civil Society
Organizations) to collect and publicly disseminate data on
inputs and expenditures.

The Approach
 This approach often involves the triangulation of information
received from disbursement records of finance ministries,
accounts submitted by line agencies and information obtained
from independent enquiry (using, for example, tools like
expenditure tracking surveys or social audits). Information is
disseminated through the use of media, publications and
public meetings.
Public Expenditure Tracking
Surveys in Uganda

 1996 public expenditure tracking survey of local

governments and primary schools revealed that on
13% of per-student capitation grants made to
schools in 1991-95.
 In 1995, for every dollar spent on nonwage education
items by the central government, only about 20 cents
reached the schools with local government capturing
most of the funds. Poor schools received nothing.
 Parents and students had no idea about their
entitlements to the grants.
 Disbursements were rarely monitored.
 Public Expenditure Tracking
Surveys in Uganda - The Results
 Primary school enrollment in Uganda rose from 3.6 million
students to 6.9 students between 1996 and 2001.
 Share of funds reaching schools increased from 20% in
1995 to 80% in 2001.
 Based on survey findings, central government launched a
mass information campaign requiring newspapers and
radio to publish data on monthly transfers of grants to
districts.
 Primary school and district authorities are required to post
notices on all inflows of funds.
 Schools and parents now have access to information
needed to understand and monitor the grant program.
What is Performance Monitoring?
 This entails citizen groups or communities monitoring and evaluating
the implementation and performance of public services or projects,
according to indicators they themselves have selected. Performance
monitoring also involves elements of public advocacy.

The Approach
 This is achieved through the use of participatory monitoring and
evaluation tools (e.g. community scorecards) and, at a more macro-
level, though the use of public opinion surveys, citizens' juries or
citizens' report cards. The findings of participatory monitoring and
evaluation exercises are presented at interface meetings (where users
and service providers come together to discuss the evidence and seek
solutions) or, as in the case of citizen report cards, are publicly
disseminated and presented to government officials to demand
accountability and lobby for change.
Performance Monitoring- Citizen Report
Cards (CRC) in Bangalore, India

 Motivation for CRC – poor provision of public

services (transportation, telephone,
electricity, water and waste disposal) in the
city and need for consumer feedback.
 Why poor services, esp. to the poor?
 Lack of incentive; most are monopolies, outdated
legal and regulatory system
 Methodology: questionnaire design,
sampling, execution of survey, data analysis,
dissemination, and institutionalization
 Performance Monitoring with
Citizen Report Cards: The Results
 Formerly apathetic public agencies now listen and react
to citizen concerns, improved customer relations
 Worst-rated agency help public forums, reviewed internal
systems for service delivery and introduced reforms to
resolve high-priority problems
 Some public agencies formalized periodic dialogues with
household consumer association to redress grievances
 Public awareness on issues of service quality has
substantially increased
 Report cards have stimulated civil society activism in
Bangalore with many more groups engaged in citizen
monitoring
 Report cards have been replicated in other Indian cities
and internationally (i.e. Philippines, the Ukraine, Kenya)
Assessing Dimensions
Each of these is important for planning and assessing how feasible
and sustainable a particular SA mechanism may be for a particular
country and institutional context.
1. Incentive Structure: Punishment (too heavy on
sanctions) or rewards (may not correct bad
behavior) or combination of the two.
2. Accountability: rule- or performance based
3. Institutionalization: high or low (ad-hoc or
inscribe in law, projects)
4. Involvement: external or internal (participatory
beyond consultation)
5. Inclusiveness: elitist or inclusive
6. Branches of government: executive, judicial or
legislative
Success Factors

 Political context and culture

 Access to information
 Role of the media
 Civil society capacity
 State capacity
 State-society synergy
 Institutionalization
 Risks of Social Accountability
 Lack of enabling environment such as an enabling policy, legal and
regulatory framework, a permissive political environment, accessible
government,
 Conducive socio-cultural and economic factors
 Not be effective remedy if a fiscal straightjacket” is the main cause of
inefficiency, corruption, poor service quality, and professional apathy.
 Not be effective when governments do not have the capacity or
financial means to sustain improvements in services, although they
are responsive.
 Lead to elite capture – local authorities are particularly prone to
capture by local elites and interests.
 Increase the social power of those civil society organizations and
interests that are better able to participate
 Can create tensions between citizens and authorities and trigger
reprisals by elected officials.
 Increase the costs of participation
Thank you!!!