Social Accountability

Searching for Citizen-Centred Accountability Mechanisms

Existing accountability mechanisms including electoral accountability do not give space for the participation of citizens in accountability as government-established bodies are the main instruments of ensuring accountability. In such cases, citizens are mute witnesses to a huge web of accountability procedures, and the only means of intervention is to approach elected members of parliament or attend the consultations convened by government bodies. This route to accountability is long and leaves little room for the articulation of citizens' opinions. As a result, basic services to citizens are delayed, and there are opportunities for siphoning off government funds. These constraints to citizen engagement have led to a search for a shorter route for citizens to directly engage with public institutions. Social accountability is one of the shorter routes which allow citizens to engage directly with public institutions to ensure accountability.

Types of Social Accountability

Social accountability can be divided into four stages based on the public finance expenditure cycle. The examples in the four stages have been taken from Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, India and the Philippines.

• 1.
  Planning: Public policymaking and participatory planning
• 2.
  Budgeting: Independent budget analysis and advocacy, analysis of budget for local bodies, gender-responsive budget and participatory budget
• 3.
  Expenditure: Public expenditure tracking and social audit
• 4.
  Performance: Participatory performance monitoring, community monitoring, Citizen Report Cards on health and water, citizen charter, right to information and public hearing

These social accountability mechanisms have improved the delivery of basic services such as employment, food subsidy and education to children and checked corruption. For example, through Government Watch Social Accountability in the schools of Naga City, Philippines, the quality of school education has improved; participatory budgets in some municipalities in Brazil have resulted in the prioritization of budgets by citizen needs and social audits of the Employment Guarantee Scheme in India have checked corruption and provided employment to the poor. The changing pattern of engagement between citizens and public institutions has gained prominence in recent times, but it has roots going back to the 1980s and 1990s, when tools such as participatory budgets were tried out in Latin America.

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