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Home»Governance»State-society relations»Accountability

Accountability

Civil Society and Accountability in Rwanda

Helpdesk Report
  • Zenobia Ismail
February 2019

Donors became interested in government accountability after the release of the World Development Report in 2004. Subsequently, the World Bank and international donors supported interventions that were designed to increase transparency which in turn was expected to promote accountability in developing countries. The limited evidence from impact assessments of such interventions ...» more

Implementation Frameworks for International Summits or Conferences

Helpdesk Report
  • Zenobia Ismail
January 2019

International summits and conferences bring together a variety of stakeholders including high-level government actors, to discuss and agree on resolutions to tackle global problems. However, the extent to which the resolutions are implemented varies. Likewise, the extent to which governments and other stakeholders can be held accountable for the commitments that they make at ...» more

Higher education, developmental leadership and good governance

Helpdesk Report
  • Giuditta Fontana
September 2017

The last decade has witnessed a renewed interest in the social benefits of higher education, with recent research suggesting that universities have a role in nurturing developmental leaders who enable positive change and better governance in low-income and conflict-affected countries (Brannelly et al, 2011b). This review summarises available evidence on the relationship ...» more

Transparency and accountability initiatives in the extractives sector

Helpdesk Report
  • Andy McDevitt
April 2017

Research on the impact and effectiveness of transparency and accountability initiatives (TAIs) targeted at the extractives sector is hard to come by. With the exception of some more systematic evaluation of the impact of multi-stakeholder initiatives, in particular the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), the existing evidence is weak. Indeed, beyond the ...» more

Parliamentary transparency and accountability

Helpdesk Report
  • Linnea Mills
April 2017

This report presents and discusses what evidence exists about initiatives to promote transparency among legislators, members of parliament (MPs), and legislative processes and what impact this has had on legislative accountability. In this report we distinguish between two types of accountability: vertical (in which citizens play a direct role in holding the powerful to ...» more

Transparency and accountability in fragile and conflict-affected settings

Helpdesk Report
  • Andy McDevitt
April 2017

Over the past 10 years, there have been numerous meta-studies and syntheses of the impact and effectiveness of transparency and accountability initiatives (TAIs), many of which attempt to incrementally add value to the existing evidence base or offer new perspectives on existing conclusions. These studies are almost unanimous in their conclusion that little of practical or ...» more

Civil society organisations and accountability in cash transfer programmes

Helpdesk Report
  • Brigitte Rohwerder
November 2016

Cash transfer programmes, like most social protection programmes, are vulnerable to fraud, errors, corruption and misuse of funds, which undermine their achievements1 (Perron, 2012: 1; Bhargava and Raha, 2015: vi). Effective mechanisms for transparency, accountability and participation help minimise those in need being wrongfully excluded from programme rolls; discourages ...» more

CSOs supporting accountability in cash transfer programmes

Helpdesk Report
  • Brigitte Rohwerder
November 2016

Cash transfer programmes, like most social protection programmes, are vulnerable to fraud, errors, corruption and misuse of funds, which undermine their achievements.  Civil society organisations (CSOs) have supported, or provided, accountability mechanisms in countries around the world: working to improve transparency to help citizens hold authorities accountable; checking ...» more

Open data, transparency and accountability

Topic Guide
  • Liz Carolan
September 2016
Voters look for their names outside a polling station in Haiti in 2011, in the second round of the presidential elections (Kendra Helmer/USAID).

Open data involves the release of data so that anyone can access, use and share it. One of the main objectives of making data open is to promote transparency. For open data and transparency initiatives to lead to accountability, the required conditions include: getting the right data published; enabling actors to find, process and use information, and to act on any outputs; ...» more

State-society relations and citizenship

Topic Guide
  • Huma Haider with Claire Mcloughlin
April 2016

State-society relations, citizenship and socio-political cohesion are areas of great importance to statebuilding and peacebuilding and are crucial to an integrated approach. State-society relations are defined by DFID as ‘interactions between state institutions and societal groups to negotiate how public authority is exercised and how it can be influenced by people. They are ...» more

Infomediaries and accountability

Helpdesk Report
  • Becky Carter
March 2016

The term “infomediaries” – or information intermediaries – is used to refer to actors who “synthesize, translate, simplify and direct information on behalf of others”. There appears to be strong evidence of the link between free media and better governance and government responsiveness on a range of issues (e.g. public spending on education and health). A DFID review on ...» more

CSOs holding governments to account

Helpdesk Report
  • Claire Mcloughlin
November 2015

This report summarises interventions by more than 30 civil society organisations (CSOs) to increase government accountability in varied sectors and contexts. CSOs use a wide variety of different media to gather information from citizens, which they then use to press for accountability. Their strategies and tactics for engaging with local and national government ...» more

Social development and human development

Topic Guide
  • Evie Browne,
  • Kerry A. Millington
October 2015
Charlotte Kesl / World Bank (A school in Colombia)

This Topic Guide aims to answer the question ‘What is the interaction between social development issues and human development outcomes?’ An individual’s right to lead a long and healthy life, to be educated and to enjoy a decent standard of living cannot be realised without addressing social development issues. This is because these issues determine individuals’ access to ...» more

Grievance Redress Mechanisms in Bangladesh

Helpdesk Report
  • Brigitte Rohwerder
January 2015

The rapid literature review identifies literature on types of grievance redress mechanisms (GRM) in Bangladesh. Many current and proposed grievance redress mechanisms in Bangladesh have a number of similar features including: An assigned focal point or grievance redress officer who manage the grievance redress mechanism. There are different focal points for different levels ...» more

Voice, empowerment and accountability

Topic Guide
  • Emilie Combaz; Claire Mcloughlin
August 2014

Voice, empowerment and accountability (VEA) interventions aim to support poor and marginalised people to build the resources, assets, and capabilities they need to exercise greater choice and control over their own development, and to hold decision-makers to account. This guide provides an overview of the best available evidence on the impact of VEA interventions. It identifies ...» more

Post-2015 accountability mechanisms

Helpdesk Report
  • Sumedh Rao
April 2014

Key messages: The Post-2015 Development Agenda refers to a currently ongoing process of defining the future global development framework, which will succeed the United Nations (UN) Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The details and wording are yet to be agreed, but there are, however, a significant number of proposals for goals and targets, and with them descriptions, in some ...» more

Electoral accountability in Indonesia

Helpdesk Report
  • Anna Strachan
February 2014

There are many different definitions of electoral accountability. For the purposes of this report, electoral accountability is defined as citizens’ ability to use electoral mechanisms to incentivise politicians to act in their interests. In his literature review on electoral institutions and local government accountability Packel (2008, p. 1) notes that that “little ...» more

Transparency and accountability

Helpdesk Report
  • Becky Carter
January 2014

More and better data is thought to be a necessary but not sufficient condition for increasing citizens’ access to that data. Likewise, increased access to more and better data is seen as a necessary but not sufficient condition for strengthening a government’s political accountability to its citizens. To date, however, there is limited understanding of exactly how, where and ...» more

Budget accountability and participation

Helpdesk Report
  • Becky Carter
July 2013

Experts agree that the evidence base on budget transparency, accountability and participation is limited and underdeveloped. However there are a growing number of case studies and meta-analyses covering a wide geographic scope and diverse contexts, with a variety of methods and gender sensitivity. Key findings from the evidence include the following: There are examples ...» more

Interventions for collective action and accountability

Helpdesk Report
  • Sumedh Rao
March 2013

Collective action has a relatively long history in political science and economic theory, but its application to governance programming in development is a relatively new phenomenon. As such there is little evidence of interventions that have been specifically designed to address collective action failures and increase accountability. There is, however, a range of literature ...» more

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