How can one increase the responsiveness and accountability of development agents, decision makers and service providers to the concerns of the poor? This paper examines the building of accountability mechanisms as part of developing capacity. The capacity of any system requires appropriate feedback loops to self-regulate, adapt and effectively achieve its objectives. For any accountability strategy it is important to have a communication strategy.
Accountability relations often do not work properly. Public institutions are captured by the powerful and resourceful, with the poor lacking representation. The aid relationship can induce outward accountability at the expense of non-responsiveness of private or public service providers to their primary clients. Defining clear accountability relations, responsibilities and rules and enforcing these can be powerful regulatory mechanisms for collective systems. These mechanisms build legitimacy and function as an ultimate safeguard against the misuse of power and protect the space in which societies negotiate their long-term social contract.
In any given society there are a multitude of accountability relations and thus a wide range of entry points for accountability as capacity development strategy. An accountability mechanism will combine a variety of functions, which include the following:
- Establishing reliable, legitimate and pro-poor ‘rules of the game’: Single issues are easier to communicate and negotiate. Selective focus on key legislation that has the potential to unleash societal forces can have wide-ranging consequences. For instance, the Bolivian ‘Law of popular participation’ has increased civil society engagement in policymaking.
- Increasing transparency, access to information and awareness: The promotion and protection of both access to information itself and flows of information between constituents, government, parliament, community groups, CSOs and the private sector are equally important.
- Establishing facts, broadening evidence and increasing objectivity: Performance assessments, functional reviews, public expenditure review, gender budget analysis, evaluations, peer reviews can be used to establish a degree of certainty around public interest information.
- Mandating and maintaining regular monitoring and control.
- Improving the access of the poor to recourse and arbitration.
- Moving accountability loops closer to the people: It is important to take into account the many ‘external’ factors that can influence whether the outcomes of decentralisation are pro-poor.
- Strengthening meaningful participation in political processes.
- Strengthening voice and the ability to articulate concerns: This requires knowledge and organisational capacity at grassroots level and in larger political contexts.
The paper examines three CD strategies in detail with corresponding case studies. These are:
- Making the disclosure of budget allocations to local service providers mandatory. This permits local people to question the use of these funds and over time to influence the effectiveness in using such resources.
- Independent monitoring for mutual accountability in aid. Independent monitoring recognises the inherent imbalances in aid relations and offers a concrete way to redress this imbalance. In so doing it can help to: strengthen national ownership, create opportunities for meaningful capacity development, and provide an agreed reference point for monitoring progress and for engagement in support of these objectives.
- Institutionalising client voice mechanisms. For example, client surveys are used in social audits and various forms of score cards.
