In theory, if citizens have access to information about their rights and the type and quality of services that they should expect, and if they have opportunities to use this information to affect the behaviour of providers and the decisions of policy makers, they can influence service delivery. This book looks at how this works in practice.
This book looks at the use of social accountability in the human development sectors—health, education, and social protection. It aims to learn from the experiences gained from the implementation of World Bank projects and from the small, but growing, set of impact evaluations.
Key findings:
- Information asymmetries that prevail in the HD sectors can make it difficult for citizens to assess the performance of providers. Users of services may lack information about service delivery; an understanding of how to interpret information, such as budgets and financial reports; and the capacity to act on such information. A related risk is that people may misunderstand service delivery and act in a way that does not improve its quality or may even undermine it. It is not clear to what extent the provision of information (or what type of information) can remedy these asymmetries.
- The political and social setting in a country—and the associated power relationships among poor citizens, providers, and the state—may greatly influence the capacity of citizens to use information to hold providers accountable. Individually, citizens and users may be reluctant to challenge the authority of providers. This situation may be the result of unequal power dynamics within a community. People may think they do not have the right or knowledge to question teachers or doctors because of the professionals’ status or credentials. They may be concerned about the repercussions of giving negative feedback. Moreover, citizens simply may not have time to give feedback on service delivery by filing a complaint or attending a school meeting.
- Individually, social accountability mechanisms may be ineffective. Passing a right-to-information law does not guarantee that information will be made available to citizens unless information campaigns are undertaken to let people know how to file a request. Citizens need both information and the channels to use it. It is therefore important to consider how social accountability tools interact with each other.
- The existence and strength of civil society and an independent media can influence the potential for social accountability mechanisms. Civil society organizations (CSOs) and the media can facilitate relationships among citizens, policy makers, and providers by furthering access to information and grievance redress.
- More empirical evidence is needed. The potential exists to build knowledge around the use of active information interventions such as scorecards and grievance redress mechanisms. Much can be gained from documenting, analysing, and learning from the growing body of experience with social accountability in the human development (HD) sectors. HD projects have the potential to serve as a laboratory of experimentation with social accountability interventions. Evaluating and documenting these experiences can help to improve the use of these tools in the future.
- Investment in better quality evidence is needed. Evaluations of social accountability measures are by nature complex. In addition to impact evaluations, social accountability interventions require more long-term monitoring through ongoing efforts to measure service delivery and its outcomes through administrative data and surveys.
- More concrete operational guidance is needed on the “how-to” of implementing social accountability interventions in the HD sectors. Alongside impact evaluation and performance monitoring, process evaluations and other forms of assessment can be helpful for understanding what works in implementation.
Recommendations: