South Asia Regional Training on Social Accountability Tools

September 18-20, Kathmandu, Nepal

Session on

An introduction to Governance & Accountability

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About CUTS International

• Indian origin International Organization headquartered in Jaipur, India.

• Established in 1983, pursuing social justice and economic equity within and across borders.

• CUTS has five programme centre and six resource centers: seven in India, two in Africa (Lusaka & Nairobi), one in Geneva and one in Hanoi and have direct interventions in about 35 countries.

• Good Governance is one of the key programmatic area. Working in the area of promoting transparency and accountability at all levels of governance through increased people’s participation from its inception

• Details can be seen at: www.cuts-international.org

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Year Sector Partner Agency Tools used

1999-2002

State Accountability Project (SAP) Ford Foundation

BudgetAnalysis

2003 Schemes and Programmes for Children Govt. of Rajasthan

BudgetAnalysis

2001-07 Power Sector Reforms FES, Germany CMC

2005-06 Measuring the Effectiveness of Mid Day Meal Scheme (MDMS)

World Bank, Washington DC

PETS & CRC

2006 India Budget Process IBP, WDC Peer Review

2007-08 Combating Corruption PTF, WDC RTI

2008-09 Assessing outputs of NREGS World Bank CRC/CSC/PETS

2008-10 Power Sector Reform in India, Bangladesh & Nepal

NORAD CRC

2009-10 Reforming Processing in Rural Development Dept., Rajasthan, India

PTF, WDC RTI

2009-10 Absenteeism & Service Delivery Monitoring in Health Sector (PATP)

R4D, WDC CMC & CRC

2010-12 Developing a culture of good governance ANSA-SAR CSC

2012 Community of Practice on Social Accountability ANSA-SAR

2012-13 MyCity: Improving quality of Urban Governance Asia Foundation CRC, PSI

SAc: Journey of CUTS

International Affiliations/Memberships• South Asia Social Accountability Network (SASANet)

• International Resource team on SAc of the WBI from 2007

• Communication for Governance and Accountability Program (CommGAP) of the World Bank

• Demand for Good Governance (DFGG) Learning Network

• Affiliated Network on Social Accountability – South Asia Region (ANSA-SAR)

• Freedom of Information Advocates Network (FOIANET)

• Governance Assessment Portal of UNDP Oslo Governance Centre

• In addition to India, hands on experience in working in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Nepal on SAc tools.

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Framework for Accountability Relationships Making Services Workable for the Poor (WDR 2004)Making Services Workable for the Poor (WDR 2004)

Demand Side Approaches

Supply Side Approaches

Good Governance• Good governance is a term used to describe

how public institutions conduct public affairs and manage public

resources in order to guarantee the realization of human rights

and sustainable development.

• Governance describes "the process of decision-making, the

process by which decisions are implemented (or not

implemented) and the process by which power is exercised for

the optimum utilization of economic and social resources for

development“.

• The term governance can apply to corporate, international,

national, local governance

Governance & Key Elements

• Accountability can be defined as the obligation of power-

holders to account for their actions and behavior

• Transparency, when used in a social context, implies

openness, communication, and accountability

• Access to Information: Not piecemeal access to information,

but deliberately and systematically integrating information in the

debate on fundamental public issues to make the governance

transparent

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Why Social Accountability

• Citizens have the right to demand accountability and the State

or the public actors have an obligation to be accountable to its

citizens.

• Fundamental principle of democracy

• Contract between the state and its citizens

• Breach of contract and failure of existing mechanisms to ensure

accountability, resulted in emergence of social accountability

What is SAc: Definition• Social accountability is an approach towards

building accountability that relies on civic engagement in which,

ordinary citizens and/or civil society organizations participate

directly or indirectly in exacting accountability

• SAc mechanisms refer to a broad range of actions (beyond

voting) that citizens, communities and civil society organizations

can use to hold government officials and bureaucrats

accountable.

• SAc mechanisms can be initiated and supported by the state,

citizens or both. But very often they are demand-driven and

operate from the bottom up

• Information & Transparency (Right to Information, Websites, Community Radio, information sharing)– Promote and create two-way-communication between government and citizens through access, disclosure, and dissemination of information and transparency norms• Participation & Consultation (Participatory Budgeting)– Encourage and mediate opportunities to build multi-stakeholder coalitions that combine public and political will for policies, public spending and project planning• Monitoring & Oversight (CRCs, CSC, PETS, Social Audits)– Empower and encourage citizens, civil society and the media to enact their rights to supervise and oversee policies, programs, projects, and services• Capacity Building (WB, ANSA, CUTS)– Educate and enable civil society, authorities, and the media to effectively participate in a multi-stakeholder debate of policies, programs, projects, and services

SAc Mechanisms-various aspects

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Why is it important?

Social Accountability

Good Governance

Citizen Empowerment

Dev.Effectiveness

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Change in Approaches

• FromFrom ‘Screaming’ ‘Screaming’ toto collectivecollective ‘VOICES’ ‘VOICES’ by Citizensby Citizens

• FromFrom ‘Shouting’ ‘Shouting’ toto ‘Counting’ ‘Counting’ - quantify voice and

feedback

• FromFrom Reaction Reaction (demonstration)(demonstration) toto Informed Action Informed Action

• FromFrom Episodic Episodic (broken up)(broken up) toto Organized Action Organized Action

• FromFrom Confrontational Confrontational toto “Win-Win” situations “Win-Win” situations

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Public Expenditure Management• Resources allocated fail to reach the intended beneficiaries• Lack of Accountability: Inefficiency, ineffectiveness and lack of

transparency in the process, resulting in week delivery and poor quality of services.

Unlimited

funding????

Leakages/corruption/Absenteeism

week delivery mechanism/

poor spending

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PARTICIPATORY PUBLIC PARTICIPATORY PUBLIC EXPENDITURE MANAGEMENTEXPENDITURE MANAGEMENT

4 STAGE PROCESS4 STAGE PROCESS Budget FormulationBudget Formulation

How public resources are allocated Budget ReviewBudget Review

Diagnosing the implications of the budget

when formed Expenditure TrackingExpenditure Tracking

Seeing where the money goes Performance Monitoring Performance Monitoring

After the money is spent, see how the

output/service is performing

Each of these stages

can be carried out in

a participatory manner. That

is PPEM.

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Governance & Corruption

The manner in which the StateStateacquires and exercises itsauthority to provide public goods and services

Using publicpublic office for privateprivate gain

Corruption is an outcome – a consequence of ‘break downs’ in the governance system

Governance

Corruption

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Existing SAc tools?

• Budget Analysis

• Participatory Budgeting

• Social Audi

• Right to Information

• Public Expenditure Tracking Survey (PETS)

• Citizen's Charter

• Public Hearing

• Citizens’ Juries

• Citizens Report Card (CRC)

• Community Score Card (CSC)

• Integrating Social Accountability aspects in design of supply side institutions and service delivery approaches toinstitutionalize them with required budgetary support

• Providing Demand-side stimulus for accountability and goodgovernance for involving users and local service providers ingiving feedback and exacting accountability

• Critical mass of in-country demand side practitioners andnetworks

Key Challenges

Improving Outcomes through Feedback

Education Service Provider

District Administration/ Government

State Government

Feedback

Accountability

Services

Redesign Programs

Reallocate Resources

Improved Quality of Service Delivery

Feedback

SAc Approaches Outcomes

Citizen Report CardsCommunity Score Cards

Public Expenditure Tracking Surveys

Right to Information (RTI) Compliance

Development Outcomes• Improved Quality of Service Delivery • Program Redesign and Resource Reallocation to Improve Program Effectiveness and Public Expenditure Efficiency • Improved Governance through Demand Side Approaches in Governance

Institutional Outcomes• Institutionalization of continuous user feedback mechanisms • Formation of community-Govt.-NGO partnerships for implementation of development programs•Stronger linkages between local governments and civil society

20Thanks