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Case Studies

Country or Region: Palestine

Sector: General

Background: In general, governance in Palestine is weak, particularly as a result of the non-sovereign nature of the state (Israeli occupation). There are no laws guaranteeing access to information, and widespread scepticism exists in relation to the state’s accountability and willingness to tackle corruption. There are, however, some positive elements in terms of transparency and accountability, such as the availability of national financial reports on the Ministry of Finance website, data from the national bureau of statistics (PCBS), and the establishment of the State Audit and Administrative Control Bureau in 1995, Illicit Gains Commission in 2005, and Palestinian Anti-Corruption Commission in 2010. There is also specific mention of social accountability tools such as participatory planning and budgeting in the 2011-2013 National Development Plan.

Social Accountability Actors:

- Government: Local institutions play a crucial role in providing a wide range of services, and in some cases are supported by a strong civil society. Information is disclosed through the publishing of financial and general reports, and consultations are sometimes carried out both through town hall meetings and complaints boxes. However, these processes are not institutionalised, so the extent to which citizens are involved in decision-making processes varies significantly from institution to institution. This means that there is often a lack of clear citizen complaints mechanisms, and the publishing of planning and financial information can be rare.

- Civil society: this is the key means through which citizens can be involved in social accountability mechanisms, particularly since its prioritisation in the 2011-2013 National Development Plan. NGOs are often invited to policy formation discussions. Civil society typically focuses on filling the state’s gaps in terms of service delivery. NGOs suffer, however, as they themselves are perceived as lacking transparency.

- Media: The Ministry of Information oversees all media outlets; many are directly controlled by the state, and all are vulnerable to state harassment. The industry suffers from a lack of professionalism, and there are no established links between the media and either the state or civil society.

Suggested entry points:

- Raise awareness and build support for social accountability amongst CSOs, media, citizens and government officials. This is likely to be well received, given the public concerns over accountability and some signs from the state that this is something they are willing to embrace.

- Build capacity of the state, civil society and media, focusing in particular as building up the latter two as role models who can legitimately promote social accountability. CSOs should be encouraged to subscribe to existing online portals for financial statements and reports, and to increase citizen participation in programme design.

- Coordinate social accountability mechanisms with existing actors, such as the UNDP Democratic Governance Thematic Trust Fund and the World Bank NGO Project.

Region or Country: Madagascar

Sector: Health; local budgeting

Background: the World Bank has supported a comprehensive social accountability strategy in Madagascar. This started with the piloting of CSCs in both the health sector, and local government budgeting.

Results:

- CSCs were introduced in eight primary health centres in Anosy region led to a recorded ten percent increase in consumer satisfaction over four months. Service was noted as improving particularly as a result of: increased regularity of salary payments; increased interaction between users, health staff and village administrators; and improved infrastructure of local health facilities

- The experiment with CSCs led to a scaling up of social accountability mechanisms, with a national social accountability programme integrated into the Country Assistance Strategy

Region or Country: South Asia

Sector: Health (primarily child and maternal)

Background: the World Bank Trust Fund for Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development has supported the mainstreaming of social accountability mechanisms in South Asia since 2005. Key activities have included:

- Setting up Centres of Excellence for social accountability

- Establishing a Community of Practice

- Offering financial and technical assistance to social accountability initiatives by governments, NGOs and the World Bank

- Disseminating knowledge about social accountability initiatives through case studies, workshops, training of trainers, curriculum development, a website and a monthly newsletter to partners

Results:

- Andhra Pradesh, India: Community monitoring of health activities through CSCs was introduced in 48 health-sub-districts. This lead to the introduction of community-managed health interventions such as nutrition centres, community-managed ambulance services, drug depots and the establishment of a health risk fund. When comparing sub-districts where CSCs were introduced with control sub-districts, it was noted that in the former, 100 percent of pregnant women underwent health checks versus 50 percent in the latter; the number of women giving birth in formal health services was 87 percent in the former versus 54 in the latter; and the number of underweight babies declined to 4 percent from a previous average of 24 percent.

- Maharashtra, India: local governments in 121 villages adopted the use of CSCs as a means of promoting community level micro-planning and monitoring. This was successful in both raising citizens health awareness, particularly in terms of healthy parenting. It also served to mobilise community resources. Reduced rates of child and maternal mortality and malnutrition were noted in the majority of villages following the introduction of CSCs.

Challenges and Enabling Factors

- Social accountability mainstreaming is a resource-expensive process, the inputs and time needed for which are often underestimated.

- Cross-sector collaboration is necessary in order to institutionalise social accountability. It requires strong political commitment; an active and involved civil society; long term donor commitment; adequate resources; capable facilitators; continued collaboration.

- Organisations – including the World Bank – often lack the skills to implement social accountability effectively, with capacities varying hugely from region to region. This should be considered before any kind of scale-up takes place, through structured learning events; field-based development assignments; selective recruitment and deployment of demand-side specialists.

- Existing evidence on the causal impact of social accountability mechanisms is extremely thin.

- Building bridges between civil society, citizens and the state is a slow process that requires long term attention

Enabling factors:

- Political context and culture

- Access to information, including the role and independence of the media

- Capacity of civil society, including organisational positioning; breadth of membership; technical and advocacy skills; capacity to mobilise; legitimacy and representativeness

- State capacity, including ability of public administration to respond to emergent demands; ability to produce records and accounts; extent of horizontal accountability mechanisms; effective devolution of authority and resources; willingness to engage in partnerships

Learning

- Social accountability is ’80 percent political, 20 percent technical’. While methods and tools are important, they depend on context and the principles and values that guide their use for success.

- Stakeholder analysis should be incorporated into social accountability design from the start in order to identify relevant players and potential blockages, and assess power relations

- Identify supporters and build coalitions, as citizens typically have no say in public service delivery, and breaking this trend often triggers resistance. Building partnerships/coalitions between stakeholders can help reach the tipping point where change becomes inevitable

- A dual approach of incentives and sanctions should be used. The might include public recognition, bonuses and promotion; and public shaming, legal actions and demotion.

- The quality and accessibility of public information and data is a key determinant of social accountability success. Social accountability mechanisms can be used to promote free information; to strengthen the technical capacity of public institutions to record, manage and disclose information; in collaboration with independent media outlets such as community radio stations.

- Empowering previously marginalised citizens requires a concerted effort if elite capture is to be avoided. This requires explicit strategies with dedicated resources in order to include women, youth, poor, other marginalized groups.

- Long-term programmatic and financial commitment to maintaining social accountability mechanisms is necessary to ensure sustainability. Monitoring and evaluation should be prioritised in order to understand what is working, and timescales should be realistic.

- Rapid scale-up (once success has been proven in the pilot phase) can serve to avoid opposition from those currently benefitting from the lack of accountability

- Continuous monitoring of processes at the local level is required in order to quickly identify emergent elite capture