GOVERNANCE AND SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY

1. GOVERNANCE AND SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY Can ‘Community Based Performance Monitoring’ (CBPM) make a difference? Dr. Fletcher Tembo, Senior Economic Justice Policy Adviser, World Vision UK, Presentation at the World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings, Singapore, 18th September 2006 1

2. PRESENTATION OVERVIEW • MDGs: from the eyes of a child to the international community. • Key argument • Definitions • Social accountability • Community Based Performance Monitoring (CBPM) • Challenges • Recommendations 2

3. Constructing the 2015 dream: Mobility chart drawn by 11 girls aged 7 – 15 in Zambia, 2005 Market Recreation Farming fields 4 :15 5 mins 3 hrs 1:50 School Nyamphande rural community Clinic 4:30 1:50 1:20 3.10 Water 2 hrs Church NGO offices Firewood 3

4. MDGs in the eyes of children and their families (2) • “Our school should be a happy place and should have all the facilities” SBMA & Mountain Children’s Forum, Uttarkashi, India, Plan. • Other 2015 dreams on education (from a summary of research with over 4000 children and their families in 18 countries from all regions of the world; Grow Up Free From Poverty Coalition, 2005) • Kind and caring teachers who understand the problems of poor children and who are interested in helping those who have learning difficulties • Sufficient money to buy necessities for schools • Drinking water and clean toilets • etc 4

5. The Problem: global perspective • The political argument, “We know that when governments don't work, the development assistance we provide to governments doesn't work either. It means that children are denied the education they need - mothers are denied the health care they deserve - and countries are denied the institutions needed to deliver real results” (WB President, April 2006, Indonesia). “the poor cannot wait!”; “Making governance work for poor people” (UK Gov, 2006). • The development argument: multi-dimensionality of poverty, participation (voices of the poor studies, 1999/2000); accountability (GMR, 2006, PRS review 2005); governance and corruption (WB, 2006) • Services fail poor people (WDR 2004) 5

6. Wherefore Governance and Social Accountability? • Accountability mechanisms that address power relations, especially bringing the society directly to the service providers (social accountability) are the answer can improve governance, development effectiveness and empower the poor (including vulnerable groups). • Can they? What are the prerequisites/ challenges? How does social accountability interface with top-down donor/state public reform and decentralisation agenda? What about the issue of limited political space that constrains civil society participation? 6

7. Definitions • Accountability is “a pro-active process by which public officials inform about and justify their plans of action, their behaviour and results and are sanctioned accordingly” (Ackerman, 2005: 1, emphasis mine). • Social accountability is “an approach towards building accountability that relies on civic engagement, i.e. in which it is ordinary citizens and/or civil society organisations who participate directly or indirectly in exacting accountability” (World Bank 2004, p.3). 7

8. Social Accountability mechanisms include : • citizen participation in public policy-making • participatory budgeting • Public Expenditure Tracking Surveys (PETS) • citizen monitoring of public service delivery (such as CBPM & citizen report cards) • citizen advisory boards; citizen’s juries • Citizens Charters • social auditing • monitoring procurement 8

9. Community Based Performance Monitoring (CBPM) • Developed in the Gambia, drawing on successes of the Community Score Card by Care Malawi and enhanced focus group methods developed in Sierra Leone • Relates to the Citizen Report Card tool developed by the Public Affairs Centre, India. Unlike CRC, CBPM is primarily focused at the community level and not national level • Aimed at empowering communities to influence the quality, efficiency and accountability with which services are provided to them 9

10. CBPM features: • Uses basicparticipatory M&E principles: • communities generate the data • communities understand the data • communities review and use the data • communities own the data • Uses the community-level service or facility as the • unit of analysis • Generates information through focus group interactions • Provides immediate feedback to service providers • Enables immediate response and joint decision-making • Results in agreement to undertake reforms to improve • service quality 10

11. CBPM Process Overview Broader empowerment framework 11

12. Community Scorecard voting in Peru, March 2006 12

13. Comments on Reforms/empowerment at a Uganda Area Development Programme (ADP) • “CBPM was very helpful – it has empowered the Nkozi people, who were not aware of their entitlements. They learnt that it was their right [to receive services] and that the providers were not doing them a favour” • “Communities went ahead without the ADP staff – they followed up at different levels, called meetings, visited the LC III (Sub-County Chairman), even called a meeting with a doctor about bad drugs. As a result, inappropriate drugs were withdrawn.” • Communities demanded improved school facilities, received 60 iron sheets from the Sub-County, received funds from various stakeholders, and have burned 30,000 bricks. • “The CBPM process so far has reduced the burden of work for ADP staff, especially for the Community Development Facilitator, because now the community can mobilize and represent for themselves.” • CBPM can reduce the cost of monitoring, because the communities can do monitoring and reporting • CBPM helped to improve the relationship between ADP staff and community members • The quality of the ADP team has improved, because it is now more accountable 13 Slide by Bill Walker, WV Australia

14. Reforms/empowerment at Pantanal, NE Brazil By the end of 2005, the community had, as a result of one of the CBPM community gatherings:  1) Organized a 300-person march on Sept 30 (about a week after the training) to highlight issues raised in the health centre gathering. 2) Ensured this event had good coverage on local radio. 3) Made demands on the local gov’t so that: a) The municipality agreed to build a new health centre and a school in their neighborhood b) It hired a new nurse and a new pediatrician; another doctor returned to the clinic c) Professional health staff will have enhanced training, based on best practices gathered by centre coordinator from other local clinics d) A suggestion box has been set up in the clinic 14

15. Key Challenges of CBPM and other SA innovations • Key challenges of CBPM and other SA approaches • Small-scale engagements/ experimentation, with a wide gap with national practice and policy processes • Working in different political contexts, especially those not conducive to citizen engagement • More applicable in communities/ situations where services are already available 15

16. Making a difference (what we are learning) • For a significant contribution to governance and poverty eradication, SAs require • Institutionalisation into policy and practice • Dealing with representation issues to address vulnerability • Methods for scaling up that systematically relate local to global level activity • Taking advantage of the human rights framework to inform investments and practice 16

17. Developmentoutcomes: the reality …but, there are many weak links in implementation; the whole system needs to work, to make services deliver & produce desirable outcomes Central Govt Leakage of Funds LocalGovt Inappropriate spending Providers Low-quality instruction Clients Primary education Lack of demand Benefits Slide by Bill Walker, WV Australia 17

18. Developmentoutcomes: the reality revisited from a human rights angle …but, there are many weak links in implementation; the whole system needs to work, to make services deliver & produce desirable outcomes Central Govt Leakage of Funds: whose duties are not performed? LocalGovt Inappropriate spending: whose duties are not performed? Providers Low-quality instruction: whose duties are not performed? Clients Primary education Lack of demand: whose duties are not performed? Benefits 18

19. Making a difference (2) • Politics (including political parties) • Innovative use of evidence for policy making 19

20. Recommendations for CSOs (1) • Deal with representation/ legitimacy issues • Deal with transparency and accountability issues Workshop recommendations at CIVICUS conference, Glasgow, June 2006 20

21. donors donors government local community PRS CYCLE government local community donors donors policy process Translation of priorities to targets, resource flows and budgets Quality of Participation and Representativity CBPM representation process accountability process civil society organisations Formal and informal processes; Role of the government executive; transparency 21 FRAMEWORK FOR STRATEGISING THE ENHANCEMENT OF VOICES OF THE POOR IN PRS

22. Recommendations for CSOs (2) • Innovative practices in working with government and parliaments • Evidence-based policy influence • Scaling-up, through CSO networks and state mechanisms 22

23. Recommendations for the World Bank (1) • Move from innovations in SA to scaling up results/ main streaming through lending operations (both in terms of funding and content. Only 20% of DPOs dedicate section to the process of participation (World Bank, 2006, 24). • Human rights (e.g. leveraging domestic on legislation of international conventions, information flows). Revisit interpretation of Articles of agreement on positioning on human rights and politics • Governance and anti-corruption strategies that reinforce citizen engagement, especially in sectors of education and health. 23

24. Recommendations for the World Bank (2) • Leveraging state innovations and practice in social accountability (working beyond decentralisation) • Support to civil society engagement through innovative funding and capacity building e.g. in use of evidence and developing communities of practice especially south-south practice. 24

25. The International agenda for change • The Millennium Development Goals • The Paris declaration for Aid Effectiveness These must be translated into domestic policy and practice as justice issues in order to enforce social accountability 25

26. Some of the references used (1) • Grow-up Free From Poverty Coalition (2005), ‘Achieving our dreams for 2015’. • World Bank documents • (2006a) Development Policy Lending Retrospective • (2006b) Legal Opinion on Human Rights and the Work of the World Bank • (2005) Social Accountability in the Public Sector: A Conceptual Discussion, by J.M. Ackerman 26

27. Some of the references used (2) - (2004) Social Accountability: An introduction to the Concept and Emerging Practice, by Carmen Malena etal - (Undated) Community Based Performance Monitoring (CBPM): Empowering and Giving Voice to Local Communities’ by Jeff Thindwa et al • World Vision documents • (2006) Operational Manual for Community-Based Performance Monitoring • (2005) Poverty Reduction: are the strategies working? By Fletcher Tembo • (2003) Doing the Rights Thing? The World Bank and the human rights of people living in poverty, by Kel Currah etal 27

28. Thank you! Contact address: World Vision UK, Opal Drive, Fox Milne, Milton Keynes, MK15 0ZR, UK E:mail fletcher.tembo@worldvision.org.uk; fletcher.tembo@hotmail.co.uk Telephone: +44(0)1908244489; +44(0)1908841000; +44(0)7748118575 (Mobile) 28