Publication: Citizens and Service Delivery :
Assessing the Use of Social Accountability Approaches in the
Human Development Sectors
Loading...
Published
2012
ISSN
Date
2012-03-19
Editor(s)
Abstract
Efforts by governments, donors, and civil society alike to improve governance, accountability, and development results on the ground have heightened attention to the idea that citizens can contribute to better public services by holding their policy makers, providers, and program managers accountable. While the use of social accountability to improve services in low- and middle-income countries is not new, the topic has gained currency in recent years. This book looks at how this works in practice. 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. The review is a first step to identify lessons, knowledge gaps, and questions for further research that can improve the use of these tools in government policies and through programs supported by civil society and donors, including the World Bank. The book documents a diverse and exciting set of cases the rapid adoption of access-to-information laws, the use of public expenditure tracking surveys by civil society organizations to 'follow the money' from central government budgets to schools and health clinics, and the incorporation of grievance redress mechanisms into the design of conditional cash transfer programs. Many of the examples discussed here are new initiatives, and some are being evaluated now. Much will be gained from more evaluation and the sharing of experiences across countries developed and developing alike.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Ringold, Dena; Holla, Alaka; Koziol, Margaret; Srinivasan, Santhosh. 2012. Citizens and Service Delivery :
Assessing the Use of Social Accountability Approaches in the
Human Development Sectors. Direction in Development ; human development. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/2377 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication Democratic Republic of Congo Urbanization Review(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2018)The Democratic Republic of Congo has the third largest urban population in sub-Saharan Africa (estimated at 43% in 2016) after South Africa and Nigeria. It is expected to grow at a rate of 4.1% per year, which corresponds to an additional 1 million residents moving to cities every year. If this trend continues, the urban population could double in just 15 years. Thus, with a population of 12 million and a growth rate of 5.1% per year, Kinshasa is poised to become the most populous city in Africa by 2030. Such strong urban growth comes with two main challenges – the need to make cities livable and inclusive by meeting the high demand for social services, infrastructure, education, health, and other basic services; and the need to make cities more productive by addressing the lack of concentrated economic activity. The Urbanization Review of the Democratic Republic of Congo argues that the country is urbanizing at different rates and identifies five regions (East, South, Central, West and Congo Basin) that present specific challenges and opportunities. The Urbanization Review proposes policy options based on three sets of instruments, known as the three 'I's – Institutions, Infrastructures and Interventions – to help each region respond to its specific needs while reaping the benefits of economic agglomeration The Democratic Republic of the Congo is at a crossroads. The recent decline in commodity prices could constitute an opportunity for the country to diversify its economy and invest in the manufacturing sector. Now is an opportune time for Congolese decision-makers to invest in cities that can lead the country's structural transformation and facilitate greater integration with African and global markets. Such action would position the country well on the path to emergence.Publication Strengthening Competitiveness In Bangladesh—Thematic Assessment(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2016-07-15)This is volume 2 of a three-volume publication on Bangladesh’s trade prospects. Bangladesh’s ambition is to build on its very solid growth and poverty reduction achievements, and accelerate growth to become a middle income country by 2021, and share prosperity more widely amongst its citizens. This includes one of its greatest development challenges: to provide gainful employment to the over 2 million people that will join the labor force each year over the next decade. Moreover, only 54.1 million of its 94 million working age people are employed. Bangladesh needs to use its labor endowment even more intensively to increase growth and, in turn, to absorb the incoming labor. The Diagnostic Trade Integration Study identifies the following actions centered around four pillars to sustain and accelerate export growth: (1) breaking into new markets through a) better trade logistics to reduce delivery lags ; as world markets become more competitive and newer products demand shorter lead times, to generate new sources of competitiveness and thereby enable market diversification; and b) better exploitation of regional trading opportunities in nearby growing and dynamic markets, especially East and South Asia; (2) breaking into new products through a) more neutral and rational trade policy and taxation and bonded warehouse schemes; b) concerted efforts to spur domestic investment and attract foreign direct investment, to contribute to export promotion and diversification, including by easing the energy and land constraints; and c) strategic development and promotion of services trade; (3) improving worker and consumer welfare by a) improving skills and literacy; b) implementing labor and work safety guidelines; and c) making safety nets more effective in dealing with trade shocks; and (4) building a supportive environment, including a) sustaining sound macroeconomic fundamentals; and b) strengthening the institutional capacity for strategic policy making aimed at the objective of international competitiveness to help bring focus and coherence to the government’s reform efforts. This second volume provides in-depth analysis across seven cross-cutting themes that underpin most of the findings of pillars 1 and 2 above.Publication An Investment Framework for Nutrition(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2017-04-12)The report estimates the costs, impacts and financing scenarios to achieve the World Health Assembly global nutrition targets for stunting, anemia in women, exclusive breastfeeding and the scaling up of the treatment of severe wasting among young children. To reach these four targets, the world needs $70 billion over 10 years to invest in high-impact nutrition-specific interventions. This investment would have enormous benefits: 65 million cases of stunting and 265 million cases of anemia in women would be prevented in 2025 as compared with the 2015 baseline. In addition, at least 91 million more children would be treated for severe wasting and 105 million additional babies would be exclusively breastfed during the first six months of life over 10 years. Altogether, achieving these targets would avert at least 3.7 million child deaths. Every dollar invested in this package of interventions would yield between $4 and $35 in economic returns, making investing in early nutrition one of the best value-for-money development actions. Although some of the targets—especially those for reducing stunting in children and anemia in women—are ambitious and will require concerted efforts in financing, scale-up, and sustained commitment, recent experience from several countries suggests that meeting these targets is feasible. These investments in the critical 1000 day window of early childhood are inalienable and portable and will pay lifelong dividends – not only for children directly affected but also for us all in the form of more robust societies – that will drive future economies.Publication At a Crossroads(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-05-02)Higher education (HE) has expanded dramatically in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) since 2000. While access became more equitable, quality concerns remain. This volume studies the expansion, as well as HE quality, variety and equity in LAC. It investigates the expansion’s demand and supply drivers, and outlines policy implications.Publication Leveraging the Potential of Argentine Cities(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2016-10-18)Argentina’s path to economic prosperity is through efficient, sustainable and economically thriving cities. Not only are cities a spatial concentration of people, but also they generate agglomeration economies by concentrating ideas, talent, and knowledge. Argentina is one of the most urbanized countries in Latin America, with 90 percent of Argentine people currently living in cities. Argentina’s cities are geographically and economically diverse, and its largest urban area – Metropolitan Buenos Aires – is one of Latin America’s urban giants. Argentine cities need to address three main challenges to leverage their economic potential. Argentina’s current patterns of urban development are characterized by (a) high primacy and unbalanced regional development, (b) limited global economic footprint of urban economies, with employment concentrated in nontradable and resource intensive sectors, and (c) unplanned low-density urban expansion. Argentine cities thus face the challenges of moving toward a more balanced regional development, transitioning from local to global cities, and from urban sprawl to articulated densities to take full advantage of the benefits of agglomeration economies. To address these challenges, Argentina needs the leadership of the federal government; the coordinating power of provinces; and the capacity of empowered, financially sound municipalities. Argentine cities also need system-wide policy reforms in areas such as territorial planning, municipal finance, housing, urban transport, and local economic development. Leveraging the Potential of Argentine Cities: A Framework for Policy Action aims to deepen our empirical understanding of the interplay between urbanization and agglomeration economies in Argentina by asking the following: (a) What are the main trends and spatial patterns of Argentina’s urbanization that underlie agglomeration economies?, (b) Are urban policies leveraging or undermining the benefits of agglomeration economies?, and (c) Are Argentine cities fully reaping the benefits of agglomeration economies to deliver improvements in prosperity and livability? By addressing such questions and exploring their implications for action, this study provides a conceptual framework, empirical data, and strategic directions for leveraging the potential of Argentine cities.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication How, When and Why to Use Demand-Side Governance Approaches in Projects(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012)This note offers a process-oriented guide to strengthening demand-side governance approaches in World Bank projects with a step-by-step approach for determining how demand for good governance (DFGG) tools and approaches can be applied to different types of Bank-funded projects. The objective of this note is to help task teams anticipate demand-side governance considerations early in the project preparation process, identify potential entry points for introducing DFGG tools to address these considerations, provide guidance on selecting DFGG tools which will improve governance, transparency and service delivery, assist borrowers to introduce DFGG tools in Bank projects, and to measure their impact. The core guidance is presented in the form of a simple five-step process for determining activity in a given project context. The annexes contain a glossary of DFGG tools, checklists, website links and other resources for task teams that will assist them in introducing and deepening DFGG work in Bank projects.Publication Procurement Monitoring and Social Accountability(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009)The devolution of procurement responsibilities to local levels of government is increasingly occurring across South Asia. This trend is significant because increasingly localized decision-making better enables communities to hold government authorities accountable for the effectiveness of public spending, which can lead to various improved development outcomes, such as improvements in quality of service delivery; greater empowerment and understanding by end-users services supplied through public procurement processes; and improved oversight and accountability of service delivery agencies. The objective of this report is to set out an overview of the strategic approach developed by World Bank Institute (WBI) as a component of the Norwegian governance trust fund (NTF) program `procurement and service delivery: establishing effective collaboration between government and beneficiaries on monitoring procurement outcomes`. WBI received funds under the NTF to facilitate the development of context and audience-specific knowledge products by recognized practitioners and civil society organizations in South Asia as part of a broader effort to create a practical curriculum on social accountability in procurement.Publication Rapid Feedback : The Role of Community Scorecards in Improving Service Delivery(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014)Social accountability tools are increasingly recognized as a means of improving service delivery and governance in World Bank-supported projects. Social accountability is an approach that relies on civic engagement in that citizens participate directly or indirectly in demanding accountability from service providers and public officials. Community scorecards (CSCs), the focus of this note, are citizen-driven accountability measures that enhance citizens' civic involvement and voices and complement conventional supply-side mechanisms of accountability, such as political checks and balances, accounting and auditing systems, administrative rules, and legal procedures. As a community-based social accountability tool, the CSC can be used to gather feedback from service users and improve communication between communities and service providers. By using focus groups and facilitated interface meetings, the CSC process provides service users with the opportunity to give systematic and constructive feedback to service providers about their performance. It also helps service providers learn directly from service users about what aspects of their services and programs are working well and what aspects are not. This note aims to outline a methodology in order to help task team's work with clients to implement and scale-up CSC initiatives. To this end, examples from Bank-supported projects in which the use of CSCs has resulted in improved service delivery are showcased.Publication Initiatives Supporting Demand for Good Governance Across World Bank Group Sectors and Regions(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-08)This preliminary stocktaking report on the demand for good governance is an effort of the Demand For Good Governance (DFGG) peer learning network to bring together and highlight the wealth of existing knowledge and practices currently available to support DFGG across the World Bank. This report puts forth a framework with key principles for organizing the complex universe of DFGG efforts across sectors and regions. The paper also identifies entry-points areas of development assistance and illustrates a few good practice examples supporting and strengthening DFFG for the World Bank as it builds its understanding of the areas where the institution can scale-up these activities. This report identifies a wide-range of activities supporting DFGG, however, it is worthwhile to note some challenges in collecting information on these activities. The report provides a more detailed review of the overall findings of DFGG work across the Bank. This paper constitute the following sections: an overview of the key DFGG elements in the organizing framework; entry-points for strengthening demand for good governance with case study examples; summary of key findings of the stocktaking; and finally, some challenges that the World Bank needs to address to mainstream DFGG operationally. The annexes constitutes of the following parts: annex one is a compiled list of notable demand for good governance activities supported by the World Bank identified in the stocktaking exercise and by World Bank Vice President Units; annex two provides a brief description of projects to show how the projects and or elements within the projects support DFGG efforts; annex three provides an overview of broad categories of tools and mechanisms supporting DFGG elements in activities; annex four provides a list of World Bank staff contacted and interviewed in the stocktaking exercise; and annex five provides a list of references reviewed.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.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Vietnam(World Bank, Hanoi, 2020-05-01)Following from Vietnam’s ratification of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) in late 2018 and its effectiveness from January 2019, and the European Parliament’s recent approval of the European Union-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) and its subsequent planned ratification by the National Assembly in May 2020, Vietnam has further demonstrated its determination to be a modern, competitive, open economy. As the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) crisis has clearly shown, diversified markets and supply chains will be key in the future global context to managing the risk of disruptions in trade and in supply chains due to changing trade relationships, climate change, natural disasters, and disease outbreaks. In those regards, Vietnam is in a stronger position than most countries in the region. The benefits of globalization are increasingly being debated and questioned. However, in the case of Vietnam, the benefits have been clear in terms of high and consistent economic growth and a large reduction in poverty levels. As Vietnam moves to ratify and implement a new generation of free trade agreements (FTAs), such as the CPTPP and EVFTA, it is important to clearly demonstrate, in a transparent manner, the economic gains and distributional impacts (such as sectoral and poverty) from joining these FTAs. In the meantime, it is crucial to highlight the legal gaps that must be addressed to ensure that national laws and regulations are in compliance with Vietnam’s obligations under these FTAs. Readiness to implement this new generation of FTAs at both the national and subnational level is important to ensure that the country maximizes the full economic benefits in terms of trade and investment. This report explores the issues of globalization and the integration of Vietnam into the global economy, particularly through implementation of the EVFTA.Publication Women, Business and the Law 2016(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2015-09-09)By measuring where the law treats men and women differently, this book shines a light on how women's incentives or capacity to work are affected by the legal environment and provides a basis for improving regulation. The fourth edition in a series, this book examines laws and regulations affecting women’s prospects as entrepreneurs and employees in 173 economies, across seven areas: accessing institutions, using property, getting a job, providing incentives to work, building credit, going to court, and protecting women from violence. The report's quantitative indicators are intended to inform research and policy discussions on how to improve women's economic opportunities and outcomes.Publication Trade and Production Fragmentation : Central European Economies in European Union Networks of Production and Marketing(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2001-06)Developments driven by trade liberalization and tehcnological progress mean that old development strategies, based on state intervention and trade protection, no longer work. Global competition has brought a growing emphasis on product standards, rapid innovation, adaptability, and speedy response. Technology has made possible the fragmentation of production. Firms that become part of global production and distribution networks do not have to be foreign-owned, as many multinationals contract out the delivery of services and products. Foreign involvement facilitates the transfer of managerial and technological know-how, so firms benefit from becoming part of a network. Small producers, rather than servicing small local markets, can supply large firms abroad. Foreign participation--through outsourcing or direct investments--may offer direct access to a parent company's global networks. Becoming part of a multinational's production and distribution network is a cheap way to market products. But the unprecedented globalization of the production process has brought the integration of trade and the disintegration of production, with deep implications for the international division of labor. Have Central European economies been able to take advantage of the global fragmentation and disintegration of production and the division of labor? Ten countries--Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia--have made large strides toward readjusting their production structures to international markets, mainly in the European Union. And trade in industrial products has lost its pre-transition idiosyncratic character. All 10 economies apear to be on the same track as the European Union in changing patterns of trade with the networks the authors discuss. Progress is advanced in furniture (most of the 10 economies) and automobiles (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia) and is gaining momentum in "information revolution" networks (Estonia and Hungary). Progress in industrial integration with the European Union has been uneven. The first-tier economies (the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia) are much less so and, despite relatively low wages, have no comparative advantage in assembly in EU markets. Among first-tier economies, three stand out: Estonia and Hungary (in integration into "information revolution" markets) and Slovakia (in restructuring its automotive sector).Publication De-Risking and Other Challenges in the Emerging Market Financial Sector(International Finance Corporation, Washington, D.C., 2017-09-01)This paper examines the relationship between increasing compliance costs and correspondent bank de-risking, among other challenges, and the ability of private-sector banks in emerging markets to continue providing international banking services to their customers. The IFC Financial Institutions Group, which provides investment and advisory services to banks, microfinance institutions, mortgage and insurance companies, and other financial services providers in emerging markets, has built a global network of hundreds of clients in more than one hundred countries who rely on cross-border banking to serve the needs of their customers and, through their customers, their countries. This paper seeks to enlighten the public discourse on de-risking by sharing insights gleaned from the perspectives of IFC’s network of global emerging market financial institution clients. In this discussion, the authors present the results of the 2017 Correspondent Banking in Emerging Markets survey, undertaken by IFC to capture both data and information from IFC client banks in ninety two emerging markets.Publication Doing Business 2009 : Comparing Regulation in 181 Economies(Washington, DC : World Bank and Palgave Macmillon, 2008)Doing Business 2009 is the sixth in a series of annual reports investigating the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 181 economies from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe and over time. Regulations affecting 10 stages of the life of a business are measured: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, employing workers, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, and closing a business. Data in Doing Business 2009 are current as of June 1, 2008. The indicators are used to analyze economic outcomes and identify what reforms have worked, where, and why. The methodology for the legal rights of lenders and borrowers, part of the getting credit indicators, changed for Doing Business 2009. The paper includes the following headings: overview, starting a business, dealing with construction permits, employing workers, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, and closing a business.