Miscellaneous Knowledge Notes
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Publication
One-Stop Shops in Vietnam: Changing the Face of Public Administration for Citizens and Businesses through a Single Door to Multiple Services
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-06)This case study analyzes the development of one-stop shops in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, from inception of the first one in Ho Chi Minh City in 1995 through the full roll out of this model of integrated service delivery across the country, beginning in 2003. Embedded in the spirit of the “Doi Moi” reforms that began in the 1980s, one-stop shops have been an integral part of the government’s public administration reform program, initiated in 2001. Political support, decentralization, clear guidelines regarding organizational structure, and significant capital investment allowed the one-stop shop model to successfully transform the attitudes of civil servants toward the public, reduce bureaucracy, inefficiencies, and rent seeking, and improve the quality of services delivered. -
Publication
Human Rights-Based Assessment Tool for Citizen Service Centers: Moving Toward a Rights-Based Approach in Design, Strategy, and Implementation
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-06)This note provides practical advice on how to adopt a human rights-based assessment for the design, strategy, and implementation of service delivery by citizen service centers. Designed for World Bank teams conducting preliminary assessments, the tool presented here can also beuseful to clients such as citizen service center managers to deepen their understanding of the value of a human rights based assessment and to improve the quality, accessibility, and effectiveness of service delivery. The tool consists of an introduction to the human rights-based approach (HRBA), its relevance to citizen service centers, rationales for adopting the approach, and a 20-question survey instrument. -
Publication
Empowering Citizens through Budget Transparency in the North-West and Adamawa Regions
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-06)Citizens often lack information on the use of public funds. They are usually left out of allocation decisions and do not have opportuni¬ties to provide adequate and timely feedback on the use of scarce resources. Transparency in budgetary processes reduces opportu¬nities for wasteful and corrupt spending. As a consequence, and because it can increase trust in authorities and lead to enhanced tax collections, budget transparency could increase resources avail¬able to fight poverty. Therefore, with support from the World Bank, two regions in Cameroon (the North-West and Adamawa) piloted an initiative to promote greater budget transparency with three objectives: simplification, analysis, and disclosure of budgets at multiple levels (national, regional, divisional, municipal, school, and health center); awareness and capacity-building of government officials and local/regional institutions to promote public dialogue about public expenditures by encouraging demand-side governance; and documentation and dissemination of activities. In both the regions, steering committees under the chairman¬ship of their governors spearheaded and coordinated the activities under the initiative. Two local nongovernmental organizations with expertise in social accountability approaches facilitated the community mobilization and budget dissemination process. -
Publication
Increasing Accountability through Budget Transparency at the Subnational Level in Cameroon
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-06)Improving governance is a major development challenge for Cameroon and for many other developing countries, and making public financial management more transparent is a central part of it. While budgets are public documents, accessible to citizens in principle, in practice, budget information is difficult to come by as a result of political, administrative, capacity, and logistical constraints as well as cost barriers at all tiers of government, including the national, regional, and municipal level and at service-delivery points like schools and health centers. In two of Cameroon s 10 regions, a World Bank-supported initiative has piloted a citizen-centered approach for disseminating simplified budget information of 151 schools, 58 health centers, and 28 municipalities and the two regional administrations. Budgets were made public and awareness was raised through various activities, including public community meetings at which the budgets of institutions were read aloud, poster campaigns, art competitions, theater performances, student budget clubs, and the use of media such as community radios and Facebook. Results of the initiative include increased tax revenues for one local council, changes in the willingness of parents to contribute to the financing of schools, and greater trust between mayors and constituents. -
Publication
A Local Budget Transparency Index for Cameroon's Local Councils : Insights from a Benchmarking Exercise
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-06)Transparent budgets and public financial management processes constitute a key pillar of good governance. However, while this has been increasingly recognized for national budgets, little attention is paid to subnational budget transparency. To fill this lacuna, a World Bank-supported initiative piloted a local budget transparency index (LBTI) in two of Cameroon s ten regions. Thirty-one local councils in the Northwest Region and nineteen in the Adamawa Region self-assessed the openness of their budget processes by filling out questionnaires in 2012. The councils were then ranked, the results were published, and, in Adamawa, discussed in a public meeting called by the region s governor and attended by mayors and the media. Through this exercise, mayors of low-ranking councils were publicly questioned about their low scores, which led to a palpable desire on their part to better perform in the next round of the survey. In 2013, independent nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) gathered the same information in a second round of surveys. This note discusses the methodology, main findings, and results from the LBTI pilot in the two regions and concludes with key challenges and lessons learned. -
Publication
Cameroon Budget Transparency Initiative : Lessons Learned and Recommendations for Local Councils
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-06)From 2011 to 2013, the World Bank-financed Budget Transparency Initiative1 has conducted a number of activities in the North-West and Adamawa Regions to make local council budgets more transparent and accessible to citizens. The pilot project developed and tested a number of tools and activities to increase the budget transparency of local councils and, in the process, to learn lessons about their efficacy. Based on the lessons learned dur¬ing the implementation of the pilot, this brief summarizes recommendations that are relevant to policy makers interested in scaling up efforts at increasing budget transparency at the local level. -
Publication
Improving the Public Expenditure Outcomes of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme through Social Accountability Interventions in Sirohi District, Rajasthan, India
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-11)The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), enacted by the government of India in 2006, recognizes employment as a universal legal right for every rural household. Breaking from earlier employment schemes and development programs, NREGA is significant in that it is 'a regime of rights' for poor rural communities. NREGA provides a comprehensive set of entitlements that not only outline judicially enforceable terms for employment but also give citizens a central role in all stages of implementation. The overall objective of this social accountability intervention was to assess NREGS implementation, identify lacunae in program implementation, and build ownership of the findings of this intervention within all levels of government. NREGS has a system of continuous external monitoring and verification to curb corruption and maintain quality implementation. The Citizen Report Card (CRC) survey found that 56 percent of the project worksites were visited fewer than three times by upper level government authorities.