How can public services in developing countries be improved? How can poor people be encouraged to participate in service delivery? There is little evidence that market-oriented reforms have improved public services in developing countries. As a result, donors have begun emphasising the importance of strengthening service providers’ direct accountability to users. Involving citizens in service delivery can improve accountability, but formal participatory mechanisms can exclude the poor.
Market-oriented reforms to public services in the 1990s sought to change the incentives of providers by giving service users more choice. However, these reforms have not necessarily improved basic services for poor people, so donors have focused on measures to improve accountability. These measures have included arrangements to encourage the participation of poor people and to strengthen their influence through complaints systems, citizens’ charters and other mechanisms. More recent efforts to improve participation have focused on citizens’ roles in the formulation of policy.
Public sector reforms can restrict opportunities for groups to shape policy and to organise the effective monitoring of service delivery. However:
- Collective action by (or on behalf of) poor people to demand accountability can expose failures of government and service providers, imposing reputational and political costs. To be effective, such action needs to be targeted and sustained over a period of time, and groups need leverage – through access to information, for example.
- Collective action that benefits poor people does not arise automatically from strengthening civil society organisations. For example, strengthening organisations that are located on the margins of a network and have few relations to the state is likely to have limited impact. Strengthening those civil society organisations that are central to existing networks and well-connected to the state is likely to produce greater impact.
- Investing in strengthening networks that have a strong vertical reach from policymakers to the grassroots might be a good strategy for achieving improvements in social accountability.
Practitioners should involve citizens in service delivery reform to improve accountability but be aware that formal participatory mechanisms can exclude the poor. Where groups are involved at significant moments of public reform, they are more likely to be able to influence the design of institutional mechanisms. In addition, practitioners should:
- Implement reforms in ways that create opportunities for collective action. In Mexico, the central government has formal agreements with social organisations to collaborate on the design and implementation of social policy.
- Understand how informal accountability mechanisms may be working for poor people. Collective action by, or on behalf of, poor people to demand accountability from service providers may be effective.
- Recognise the importance of non-state and informal provision of services. In fragile situations, the majority of services may be delivered by non-state organisations. In some contexts, co-production models have developed.
- Address group inequalities in service delivery, but recognise the dangers of entrenching divisions. Affirmative action programmes can play a role in incorporating specific groups in politics.
- Incorporate rights-based approaches where politically viable. A rights-based approach can enable dialogue between state and citizens, and allow citizens to consider their responsibilities as well as the responsibilities of the state.
