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Social Accountability

Citizen Engagement for Enhanced Accountability. Social Accountability. Reiner Forster, WB Accra/ Ghana May 3-5, 2005. What is Accountability?. Accountability can be defined as the obligation of power-holders to account for or take responsibility for their actions.

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Social Accountability

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  1. Citizen Engagement forEnhanced Accountability Social Accountability Reiner Forster, WB Accra/ Ghana May 3-5, 2005

  2. What is Accountability? • Accountability can be defined as the obligation of power-holders to account for or take responsibility for their actions. • Public officials and civil servants are accountable to citizens for their conduct and performance.

  3. How Can Accountability Be Ensured ? • Rules and Regulations – administrative procedures, audits, code of conduct… 2. Bring in Market Principles – privatization or contracting out to private sector and NGOs 3. Independent Agencies – ombudsman, vigilance committees … There has been vary-ing success with these. What has been learnt is that suc-cess often depends on direct parti-cipation of the people 4.“Social Accountability”

  4. What is Social Accountability? SAc is an approach towards building accoun-tability that relies on civic engagement, • i.e. where ordinary citizens and/or their organizations participate directly or indirectly in exacting accountability 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. SAc complement and strengthen formal accountability mechanisms

  5. Examples of SAc practices

  6. Why is Social AccountabilityImportant ? Social Accountability Good Governance Empower-ment Development Effectiveness

  7. WDR 2004: Making Services Workfor the Poor Policymakers Social Accountability Mechanisms Poor people Providers A framework of accountability relationships Voice Service Compact Client Power

  8. Participatory Public Expenditure Management Cycle Budget FormulationPorto Alegre, Brazil Performance MonitoringCitizen Report Cards India, Kampala Budget Review & AnalysisIDASA, SA Civic Engagement Expenditure TrackingPETS Uganda

  9. SAc Critical Success Factors

  10. Potential Risks • Raised or unreasonable expectations • Risk of adversarial attitudes or conflict • Elite capture • Citizen engagement may be superficial or bring no concrete results • May involve only “well behaved” NGOs, etc. • May threaten or demoralize civil servants/ service providers

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