1. RE-THINKING ACCOUNTABILITY Social Accountability and the Search for More Effective Public Expenditure
Jeff Thindwa
Participation and Civic Engagement Group,
Social Development Department, The World Bank

2. What is Accountability?
The obligation of power-holders to account for or take responsibility for their actions.
“Power-holders” are those who hold political, financial or other forms of power.
Two key areas of accountability: government accountability (accountability of public officials and employees) and corporate accountability

3. What is ‘Social Accountability’?
An approach towards building accountability that relies on civic engagement, i.e., in which it is ordinary citizens and/or civil society organizations who participate directly or indirectly in exacting accountability.

4. Social accountability mechanisms refer to the range of methods, tools and choices to ensure greater accounting to citizens for public actions and outcomes.
They include: citizen participation in public policy-making, participatory budgeting, public expenditure tracking, citizen monitoring of public service delivery, citizen advisory boards, lobbying and advocacy campaigns
They are hence demand-driven, and operate from the bottom up.
Also sometimes referred to as “external” or “vertical” mechanisms of accountability.

5. Why Social Accountability Is Important
Good Governance
Development Effectiveness
Empowerment

6. What Has Gone Wrong? The Governance Crisis
Poor Access to Public Services
– Inefficiency
Indifference, Collusion with vested Groups
- Non Responsiveness
Rampant corruption, Extortion by `Agents & Middlemen’
- Weak Accountability
Loose Systems & Weak Integrity
- Abuse of discretion

7. …….The Service Delivery Problem?
Services do not benefit the poorest
Resources not delivering results
Increasing resources is not the only solution
Need to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of public expenditure

8. The Thinking of the WDR 2004 Possible Roots of Problem:
WDR2004 – “Making Services Work for Poor People”
Possible Roots of Problem:
Governments spend on the wrong goods and people – Budget Allocation Problem
Resources fail to reach service providers or users Expenditure Tracking Problem
Weak incentives for effective service delivery Problem of Monitoring/Accountability
Demand-side constraints
- Problem of Participation/Awareness

9. Development outcomes: the reality
…but, there are many weak links in implementation, and much needs to come together to make services work & produce desirable outcomes
Central Govt
Leakage of Funds
Policies
Institutional incentives
Local Govt
Inappropriate spending (e.g. high teacher salaries; Insufficient supply of textbooks
Providers
Public financing
Implementation capacity
Information & transparency
Institutional incentives
Clients
Low-quality instruction
Capacity & incentives
Curriculum & technology
Monitoring & evaluation
Primary
education
Lack of demand
Benefits
Ability to pay
Intra-household behavior
Community norms

10. Unbundling Service Delivery – the WDR 2004 Approach
Participatory Public Expenditure Management

11. Why Weak Collective Response?
Lack of EXIT options
Political Manipulation
Threat of Reprisal
Information Barriers
Low / No Trust in any formal mechanism

12. How to Make a Change From Coping to ‘Voices’ by Citizens
From Protest to Analysis and Engagement
From Ad Hoc Responses to Systematic
Action
Creating “win-win” situations

13. Participatory Public Expenditure Management
Facilitates the institutionalization of social accountability mechanisms into the decision-making of public institutions and policy, and leads to more sustainable poverty reduction outcomes.

14. Performance Monitoring is what the training this week will focus on
Performance Monitoring is what the training this week will focus on. Specifically-Community Based Performance Monitoring
Training facilitators to build capacities of local communities to evaluate how public spending on social services and budget reform programs actually perform and impact on the lives of the people, specifically, the poor, in the context of SPA II/PRSP
The community score card process is one instrument for helping bringing about such capacity

15. The Four Components of the Community Scorecard Process
Input Tracking Scorecard
Interface Meeting
Performance Scorecard
Self-Evaluation Scorecard

16. Community Score Card Methodology Allows for…
Tracking of inputs or expenditures (e.g. availability of drugs)
Monitoring of the quality of services/projects
Generating benchmark performance criteria that can be used in resource allocation and budget decision
Comparison of performance across facilities/districts
Mechanisms of direct feedback between providers and users
Building local capacity
Strengthening citizen voice and community empowerment.

17. Summary of Steps in Community Scorecard Process
Preparatory Groundwork
Community Gathering
Input Tracking Scorecard
Performance Scorecard
Divide into focus groups
Information on entitlements/ budgets
Develop input indicators
Collect evidence on input use
“Transact Walk”
Record data
Divide into focus groups
Develop performance indicators
Finalize indicators (5-8 max.)
Performance scoring by groups
Verify High/Low Scores
Record data
Interface Meeting
Self-Evaluation Scorecard
Feedback and Dialogue
Accountability
Efficiency
Reform
Transparency
Empowerment
Development