Scaling Up Collaborative Social Accountability in Complex Governance Systems: A Relational Approach for Evidencing Sustainability

doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1596/41061

Publication:
Scaling Up Collaborative Social Accountability in Complex Governance Systems: A Relational Approach for Evidencing Sustainability

dc.contributor.author	Guerzovich, Florencia
dc.contributor.author	Wadeson, Alix
dc.date.accessioned	2024-02-13T20:28:20Z
dc.date.available	2024-02-13T20:28:20Z
dc.date.issued	2024-02-13
dc.description.abstract	When social accountability interventions scale up and their sustainability depends on the interactions of many agents and system components, related results are rarely observable at the end of an intervention. The 2019 OECD Development Assistance Committee’s (OECD DAC) revamped evaluations criteria for assessing sustainability acknowledges that such results are often emergent, and should be monitored and evaluated with this in mind. It therefore emphasizes a turn towards assessing complex processes prospectively. It also asks evaluations to consider how likely it is that these results are evident at the time they are monitored or evaluated. However, the social accountability field continues to have gaps regarding doing this effectively in practice. This paper presents and provides evidence from testing an innovative operational approach that has promising potential to support this aim - a sequential, relational rubric. This approach can support practitioners to monitor, evaluate and learn about the causal processes of scale up of social accountability interventions with an eye towards sustainability i.e., considering prospective sustainability. It is grounded in systems thinking, co-production and social learning theory, as well as links with collective governance and social contract theory for development. Evidence yielded from the authors’ testing of this approach on a sample of diverse projects from the Global Partnership for Social Accountability (GPSA) program revealed that the alleged ‘absence of evidence’ dilemma of social accountability scale up is due to ill-fitting concepts and methods for assessment. It challenges existing assumptions and findings that claim that social accountabilityprocesses do not scale and are unsustainable. The authors propose that by using fit-for-purpose concepts and methods with a focus on social learning and compromise – also called a ‘resonance pathway to scale’ which this paper discusses in detail – it is possible to observe loosely coordinated scale up processes at work in many (but not all) social accountability interventions and identify tangible evidence of prospective sustainability. An important caveat is that these processes, the outcomes they generate, and the corresponding evidence often look qualitatively different than the original intervention design and predictions for scale-up at that point in time. This is because the process of deliberation and compromise inherent to social accountability work in dynamic local systems introduces changes and new conditions for uptake by diverse actors in the public sector, civil society, and donor institutions. The paper concludes that even relatively small-scale localized projects of three to five years with budgets of less than one million USD, across different contexts and sectors can produce processes and outcomes which contribute to many forms of sustainability, including via scaleup. Furthermore, the cross-fertilization of learning and aggregation of results for scale-up across projects within and beyond the GPSA (and other programs) can help monitoring evaluation and learning (MEL) and social accountability practitioners alike to deliver on a program’s mandate. Doing so can also create new knowledge for the wider social accountability field that siloed interventions, lacking suitable concepts and methods for assessing scale-up and prospective sustainability, often fail to produce. The paper ends with recommendations for taking forward this approach and the associated benefits, implications and required investments	en
dc.identifier	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099248202082451403/IDU143be23531a0f714f561b91515c596de86102
dc.identifier.doi	10.1596/41061
dc.identifier.uri	https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/41061
dc.language	English
dc.language.iso	en_US
dc.publisher	Washington, DC: World Bank
dc.rights	CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO
dc.rights.holder	World Bank
dc.rights.uri	https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/igo
dc.subject	SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY
dc.subject	GOVERNANCE SYSTEMS
dc.subject	RELATIONAL APPROACH
dc.subject	EVIDENCE SUSTAINABILITY
dc.title	Scaling Up Collaborative Social Accountability in Complex Governance Systems	en
dc.title.subtitle	A Relational Approach for Evidencing Sustainability	en
dc.type	Working Paper
dspace.entity.type	Publication
okr.crossref.title	Scaling Up Collaborative Social Accountability in Complex Governance Systems: A Relational Approach for Evidencing Sustainability
okr.date.disclosure	2024-02-13
okr.date.lastmodified	2024-02-08T00:00:00Z	en
okr.doctype	Publications & Research::Working Paper
okr.docurl	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099248202082451403/IDU143be23531a0f714f561b91515c596de86102
okr.guid	099248202082451403
okr.identifier.docmid	IDU-43be2353-a0f7-4f56-b915-5c596de86102
okr.identifier.doi	http://dx.doi.org/10.1596/41061
okr.identifier.externaldocumentum	34254813
okr.identifier.internaldocumentum	34254813
okr.identifier.report	187619
okr.import.id	3164
okr.imported	true	en
okr.language.supported	en
okr.pdfurl	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099248202082451403/pdf/IDU143be23531a0f714f561b91515c596de86102.pdf	en
okr.region.geographical	World
okr.topic	Social Development::Social Accountability
okr.topic	Governance::Governance Indicators
okr.unit	Social PM (SSIGL)