Miscellaneous Knowledge Notes
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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
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. -
Publication
Impact of Social Accountability Mechanisms on Achieving Service Delivery and Health Development Outcomes in Satara District, Maharashtra, India
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-11)Satara District Council has an average budget of roughly US$30 million/1,410 million Indian rupees to provide health, nutrition, drinking water, sanitation, and education infrastructure services to its citizens. While social and economic indexes indicate that Satara is one of the better-developed districts in Maharashtra, it still falls short in attaining expected service delivery outcomes. Irregular health services and suboptimal health outcomes such as malnourishment, unsafe drinking water, and lack of sanitation remained major challenges in the district because of the absence of community participation in planning and poor accountability on the part of public functionaries. The overall objective of this accountability intervention was to improve development outcomes by strengthening the delivery of services by key government departments and programs. The micro-planning (MP) aspect of the process allowed communities to set collective priorities and decide on investments while the community scorecards (CSC) part allowed regular monitoring, feedback, and dialogue between service users and providers. -
Publication
Chhattisgarh, India: Performance Rating of Gram Panchayats through Community Score Cards
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-09)The World Bank-supported Chhattisgarh District Rural Poverty Reduction Project (CGDPRP), also called locally as Nawa Anjor (New Light), aims at improving opportunities for poor and vulnerable communities in Chhattisgarh State. To achieve this goal, the project creates infrastructure and income opportunities for the rural poor, empowers disadvantaged groups, and helps local governments1 become more responsive and effective in assisting the poor. CGDPRP sought to develop a performance monitoring and rating system to build local government capacity, especially the Gram Panchayats (GPs). In this context the project experimented with the use of the Community Score Card (CSC) for identifying crucial issues that affect local service delivery, measure user satisfaction, empower village citizens (especially the poor and women), and rate the performance of GPs. This note summarizes the findings, processes, concerns, and lessons learned from the Chhattisgarh pilot. -
Publication
Maharashtra, India: Improving Panchayat Service Delivery through Community Score Cards
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-08)This note summarizes the experiences from a pilot project undertaken by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, in partnership with the World Bank-sponsored Jalswarajya Project. The current initiative was one of six pilot projects launched by the South Asia Sustainable Development Department (SASAR) of the World Bank aimed at the application of specific social accountability tools in different contexts of service delivery through the trust fund for Capacity Building and Piloting of Social Accountability Initiatives for Community Driven Development in South Asia. -
Publication
Andhra Pradesh, India: Improving Health Services through Community Score Cards
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-08)The current initiative was one of six pilot projects launched by the South Asia Sustainable Development Department of the World Bank aimed at the application of specific social accountability tools in different contexts of service delivery through the trust fund for Capacity Building and Piloting of Social Accountability Initiatives for Community Driven Development in South Asia. This note summarizes the findings, processes, concerns, and lessons learned from the Andhra Pradesh pilot. -
Publication
The Gemidiriya Program, Sri Lanka: Piloting the Community Assessment Process
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-08)The Gemidiriya program's long-term objective is to reduce rural poverty and promote sustainable and equitable rural development. The program aims at creating an environment that enables rural communities to improve their livelihoods and quality of life. It paves the way for rural communities to get together, organize formally, plan village development by themselves with 50 percent women participation, and to mobilize self-help and community contributions. The Gemidiriya focuses on building accountable and self-governing local institutions by: (i) devolving decision-making power and resources to community organizations; (ii) strengthening selected local governments that demonstrate responsiveness and accountability to rural communities; and (iii) working with federations of village organizations (VOs), the private sector, and non governmental organizations (NGOs) on economic empowerment to increase the size and diversity of livelihoods. This note summarizes the findings, processes, concerns, and lessons learned from the Sri Lanka pilot.